Sunday, December 22, 2013

MOVIE REVIEW: "Hips, Hips, Hooray!" (1934)

Well, you thought that I was going to stop blogging until the new year, eh? Well, you are WRONG!! Yesterday, I recieved a DVD set via FedEx called "Wheeler & Woolsey: RKO Comedy Classics Collection". I love early 1930's comedy of the pre-code era, what is the pre-code era, you are asking, well let me explain. In 1934, after the release of King Kong, Duck Soup and many others, times in Hollywood were changing, there was a new censorship code put in place, referred to as the "Hay's Code", which forced many of the big studios to stop inserting the following things into their films: sex, drugs and glorification of wrong-doing. Many people felt at the time, and to this day, that this was the beginning of the end. Such was he case with the, now long forgotten, comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey. Wheeler & Woolsey were vaudevillians and most vaudeville acts depicted sexual acts or innuendos. Their first screen outing was RKO's lavish 1929 cinematic version of the popular stage production of Rio Rita. Bert & Bob stole the show and took the comedy world by storm, by 1931 they had already filmed the successful The Cuckoos, Half Shot at Sunrise, and Hook, Line and Sinker. This film was the beginnining of the end of their careers. Bert & Bob's comedy was founded on sexual innuendos, but now that the code had enforced the banning of such risque material, they had to switch gears and make their comedy mor "kiddie" orientated. This film is often seen as their last great movie. Although, this was before the code was being strictly enforced. The basic plot of the film is this, Andy Williams (Wheeler) and Dr. Bob Dudley (Woolsey) convince Amelia Frisby, the owner of a beauty supply business to hire them as salesman to promote her new flavored lipstick, and hilarity ensues. The film is full of double entendres, and scantily clad women throughout. take a look at this scene from the film, which speaks for itself:


Saturday, November 23, 2013

MOVIE REVIEW: "Hercules Unchained" (1959)

Hello dear friends, it has been awhile hasn't it, well I have just returned from a viewing of the 1959 epic Hercules Unchained, starring bodybuilder Steve Reeves.
For those of you who were too young to remember, Hercules films, along with other films about heroes from Greek mythology, were all the rage back in the late 50's. These foreign import films were known in the trades as "Sword & Sandal" and were marketed as exploitation films. Most film snobs look down on these movies, I think due mainly to how they were treated in North America. These were originally Italian made films, made before the "Spaghetti Westerns", that depicted heroes from Italian and Greek mythology like Maciste, Hercules, Ursus, Samson and Goliath. When they were exported to the U.S they were often re-titled, re-edited and dubbed over. Most of these were distributed by low budget film distributors like AIP (American International Pictures), with the exception of a few like the film being reviewed today. Sadly, today many of these films are offered to the public in shoddy public domain movie collections (i.e Mill Creek's 50 movie packs) and are usually either 16mm dupes or VHS transfers, mostly in full frame. Most of these films when first released were in Cinemascope (Widescreen) formats, so it was a disservice to view a full frame presentation of a film originally meant to be viewed in widescreen.
            Hercules Unchained (Italian title: Ercole e la regina di Lidia, Hercules and the Queen of Lydia) was a sequel to the very popular 1958 film Hercules (or The labours of Hercules), which also starred Reeves, and a good portion of the sequel's main cast members. The plot follows Hercules (Reeves), his wife Iole (Sylva Koscina) and Ulysses (Gabriele Antonini) as they take a trip to Thebes where a war is brewing between two brothers, Eteocles (Sergio Fantoni) and Polynices (Mimmo Palmara), who want the throne. Hercules is asked by an elder to bring peace between the two, so Hercules is off to carryout his deed. He, along with Ulysses stop to rest a moment before continuing on with their quest. Hercules drinks water from an enchanted spring and forgets everything about himself. He and Ulysses are captured by Queen Omphale's (Sylvia Lopez) band of knights. At Omphale's palace he falls under her spell and falls in love with her, while Ulysses is desperately trying to convince Hercules of who he is. In every attempt he is thwarted by Omphale's men and he is escorted back to his dungeon. Iole is now victim to Eteocles', and he imprisons her to feed her to his savage tigers. Visitors from Thebes arrive at Omphale's palace and give Hercules greater understanding of who he is. He finally comes to his senses and unleashes an all out attack against Omphale's guards, using his strength to fend them off. At last moment, Omphale attempts to close the gates only to have Hercules use his mighty power to prop them open. Along with Ulysses and the Thebians, Hercules escapes, leaving Omphale to fall to her death (which given the fact that this was one of Lopez's last films before her untimely November 1959 death to leukemia makes the scene all the more unsettling). Hercules arrives in Thebes just in time to stop the war and save his wife in one of the greatest film climaxes since Ben Hur. The film ends with Hercules promising his wife eternal love and the high priest Creon (Carlo D'angelo) gaining ownership of the throne.
                At the end of the day, I can most certainly recommend Hercules Unchained, though there were moments of the film that could have been handled better by U.S exhibitors, like some poor editing choices and some over zealous dubbing, the film is still highly recommended. I would, however, insit that one seeks out the original widescreen Italian version (with English subtitles, if available) to truly appreciate the scope and the beauty of this film. I am now an official fan of the "Sword & Sandal" genre, which is officially referred to as the Peplum film genre. I have many more of them to see, but I fear that they may not meet my expectations that were set high by this film. This is a very underrated grandiose spectacle, it truly does not belong in the exploitation genre, it is as good, or even better than the aforementioned Ben Hur. If you see the film, you won't be disappointed, it has all the beauty and charm of one of the major Hollywood blockbusters of the time. If you love an action packed story, than this is the one for you, but if you love romance and simplicity than this is also for you. The story is superb, and acting is excellent. Hercules Unchained gets a definate 4 out of 4 stars from me. You won't want to pass up the opportunity to see it. Now I must be off, to search for the 1958 predecessor film Hercules, have a great day all and give the film a chance, you won't be disappointed. Cherrio everyone. -Geno C.

Friday, November 15, 2013

"Leonard Part 6", what could have been.

As many of you well know, unless your new to me, I am a tremendous fan of comedian and actor, Bill Cosby. About a month ago I had the pleasure of sitting down to view Leonard Part 6 a film he made in 1987 for Columbia Pictures. By now many of you are asking, "Part SIX what about the first five parts?", well if you see the film you will know that the first five were "Confiscated by National Security". The film was made at a big time in his career, his hit sitcom The Cosby Show was breaking all new records and scoring ratings, and Mr. Cosby was at the top of his game. In the summer of 1986 or so, Cosby was vacationing in France when an idea for a movie popped into his head, he consulted Columbia Pictures and they green lit the picture. The film was not only written by Cosby (and Jonathon Reynolds), but he was the producer as well. The movie is basically a spy film, a genre Cosby was familiar with being in the hit 60's series I Spy as well as a 1978 made for TV film Top Secret, only this time Cosby chose to spoof the genre (Albeit with more finesse than Mike Myers' annoying Austin Powers films). In this film, Cosby,  plays Leonard Parker, a retired secret agent turned bon-vivant restaurateur who is called back to the spy game to defeat the evil vegetarian, Medusa Johnson (played by Cosby favorite and voice of the Oracle from the Matrix films, Gloria Foster), who is set to take over the world with her vast army of killer animals and muscular henchman.
David Maier (Left) Gloria Foster (Center) and Bill Cosby (Right)


Her motive is not clear and what she intends to do is not thoroughly explained. On the other side of the spectrum, Cosby must also deal with domestic difficulties, like his daughter (Victoria Rowell, in her film debut years before her role as Drucilla Winters in the soap opera The Young and the Restless) dating a 66 year old theatre director (Moses Gunn) and patching things up with his estranged wife Allison (Pat Colbert). I personally felt that this film didn't need the two subplots but I guess they were capitalizing on him being America's #1 dad at the time. This film also tries to capitalize on Cosby's being an ad-man (for years and to this day ridiculed for Jell-O pudding pops), by having Cosby use or walk by a product that was paying for the film's production. The products shown are Lava soap, Alka-Seltzer and most notoriously, Coca-Cola (since Columbia was owned by Coke at the time). This film also provides the viewer the only chance to see Mr. Cosby dance in ballet slippers and ride out of the movie on the back of an ostrich. The film, sad to say,

turned out to be a total disaster. Cosby, himself, went on talk shows telling potential moviegoers to keep away from the film like the plague. They did and Columbia, to this day, has never made back the film's reported $24,000,000 budget. The film was released on VHS and LaserDisc, but nobody bought it. They just sat on store shelves collecting dust. The movie earned five Golden Raspberry awards, which Cosby had made out of real gold and marble, which set the Fox network back about $20k. Cosby brought the awards with him on The Tonight Show and stated that he "Swept the Awards". He laughed off his failure, but that didn't (and hasn't) changed his opinions on the film. The film, however, had an impressive ad campaign with three TV spots, one of which is presented below:
There were other ads for the film, like an ad from Ponderosa Steakhouse for a mini spy camera that you could have gotten with your meal, take a look at the kid wearing the spy getup from the movie. I feel if the
film had been done properly, without the studio interference, it could've been successful. I could imagine there being prequels like the Star Wars films like Leonard Part 1: The First Adventure, it could have been a huge franchise for Cosby and Columbia, spawning more films and loads of merchandise like a Leonard action figure with accessories such as ballet slippers and an ostrich. Also Leonard lunchboxes and a die-cast model of the armored Porsche used in the film. For kids uninterested in The Cosby Show, this could've brought Cosby a bigger fan base, and fortune (not that The Cosby Show wasn't raking in the dough). This film could have taken Cosby places and would've made him more than just a sitcom dad. I think the only reason Leonard flopped was because of the fact that, Cosby had no creative control and also maybe the world wasn't ready for a film like Leonard Part 6. I think now, since the Austin Powers films have come and gone, that Cosby's effort should come back to the spotlight. It definitely does not deserve to be in IMDB's bottom 100 list (at #63), I think that if watched with an open mind, it is not half bad. I screened the film for my older sister and she enjoyed it so much, that she wanted to see it again. I'm not saying that Leonard Part 6 is the greatest film ever, but it is not the worst either. And unlike the aforementioned Mike Myers in  Austin Powers, Bill Cosby has actual talent. He is a very underrated actor, as far as I am concerned, if you see him in Disney's 1981 The Devil & Max Devlin, he gives a great dramatic showing as the embodiment of Satan. More on that film on a later post. Well, I must be going, gotta get in another viewing of Leonard, before the day is out. Cheers to all of you, and give Leonard Part 6 a chance, you won't be disappointed. Catch you later. - Geno C.

Welcome

Hello all bloggers and blog readers out there, welcome to my world where I post about anything at the top of my head, this will be quite the adventure now won't it. I will be posting stuff about movies I have seen and want to see, I will also be keeping you up to date as far as my YouTube channel, my podcast The Cult Movie Podcast and more about the goings on of my week and the weeks ahead. Thanks for visiting and happy reading. - Geno C.