LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH

Zohra Lampert

LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971). Co-written and directed by John D. Hancock. 

Jessica (Zohra Lampert) has been released from an institution after having some kind of nervous breakdown wherein she apparently had delusions. She and her husband, Duncan (Barton Heyman), decide to get away from the pressures of city life and take up farming, and they bring along pal Woody (Kevin O'Connor) to help out. In the house to which they've moved they discover Emily (Mariclare Costello), a squatter, but they encourage her to stay with them anyway, despite the fact that Jessica senses Duncan is attracted to her. The town seems to consist of strange and unfriendly old men, and Emily resembles a woman who once lived in the house and drowned before her wedding day. When Jessica starts having visions, we are uncertain if she is once again going mad or if someone is actually out to get her ... 

Barton Heyman

Jessica has many admirers, although most of them are viewers who are in love with ambiguity, which could be the film's middle name. I don't necessarily mind a little ambiguity now and then, but the screenwriters seem to be making up things as they go along, trying every possible avenue without offering any real solution. Jessica's mental state is paramount, but Jessica also hints at being a ghost story, a psychological marital drama, an ineffective vampire tale, and so on, with the result that it mostly comes off as a mess -- a mess that is oddly compelling at times, but a mess nevertheless. There's a lot of intriguing stuff buried in there but it is never mined in any dramatically viable fashion. 

Mariclare Costello

So we're left with performances from a cast that does not consist of young beauties or hunks but average-looking people who do the best they can with underwritten characterizations. The ever-weird Lampert is good, but the suggestion that her work is Oscar-worthy is ridiculous. There are some eerie moments (although I find it hard to believe some people were that scared by this flick) and the movie is moody and atmospheric enough. The film briefly takes a homoerotic detour when Emily seems to be coming on to Jessica, but this is never satisfactorily explored. Considering Jessica's mental state, it's bizarre that the family auto she and Duncan drive around in is a hearse, a strange touch that ultimately means little. The score is quirky but often inappropriate and overly noisy. If some viewers want to find deep meaning in this movie, be my guest, but I don't buy it. Director Hancock's most famous film is Bang the Drum Slowly. 

Verdict: Like both the heroine and the lead actress, this is odd -- too odd. **1/4. 

BORN TO SPEED

Vivian Austin and Johnny Sands 

BORN TO SPEED (1947). Director: Edward L. Cahn. 

Johnny Randall (Johnny Sands) is the son of a race car driver who was killed on the track. His mother, Mrs. Randall (Geraldine Wall), is horrified at the prospect of her son following in his father's footsteps and tries to get the help of her late husband's old colleague, Breezy Bradley (Frank Orth) to dissuade him. But Breezy feels Johnny has the makings of a great midget-car racer and things get more complicated when Johnny falls for Breezy's niece, Toni (Vivian Austin billed as Terry Austin), who already has a sort-of boyfriend in rival driver Mike Conroy (Don Castle). Johnny winds up on the track in the guise of the Masked Racer. 

Johnny Sands and Geraldine Wall

Born to Speed is a fast-paced PRC programmer that benefits from some pretty good racing footage, but to say the movie is cliched and mindless is a major understatement.  The performances help a lot, with handsome Sands quite appealing as Johnny and Vivian Austin displaying sauciness if not a lot of sex appeal as Toni. Geraldine Wall had several flavorful appearances on Perry Mason some years later, and likable and adept Frank Orth had nearly 200 credits in his long career. Don Castle had quite a few credits as well, one of them being Roses Are Red. If anything Born to Speed makes clear that racing is perhaps one of the stupidest ways to make a living! 

Verdict: Another PRC non-winner. **. 

THE MASKS: TWILIGHT ZONE

Robert Keith

THE TWILIGHT ZONE Season Five, Episode twenty-five. The Masks (1964). Written by Rod Serling. Directed by Ida Lupino. 

Although "The Masks," written by Rod Serling, is hardly one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, it does have several points of interest. The plot has to do with a wealthy and grumpy man named Jason Foster (Robert Keith) who is on his death bed. His greedy, unloving relatives -- daughter Emily (Virginia Gregg), her husband Wilfred (Milton Selzer) and their adult children Paula (Brooke Hayward) and Wilfred Jr. (Alan Sues) -- arrive in Jason's New Orleans mansion during Mardi Gras, and he insists that all four of them put on and wear these grotesque masks until midnight -- or they will be cut out of the will. 

Brooke Hayward as the vain Paula

Okay, let's assume that this will and Jason's edict is enforceable, which is extremely unlikely, or that a dying man would even have time to change his will in the first place, I have always had other problems with this episode. Even an eight-year-old will realize that when the relatives take off their masks at midnight, their faces will be as hideous as the masks. But do these people, as greedy and frivolous as they may be, really deserve permanent disfigurement? They aren't child murderers, for heaven's sake. And one has to wonder exactly what kind of father Jason was in the first place, as he seems distinctly unpleasant from the beginning (admittedly, people on their death beds will probably not be happy campers, but still ... ) One can't imagine any kind of loving father wanting to impose such a cruel fate on his own daughter and grandchildren; disinheriting them would have been more than enough. Serling's teleplay lacks any kind of final twist that would give the nasty old fart his due. 

The masks come off at midnight

Still, whatever its obvious flaws, The Masks features excellent ensemble acting from the entire cast. Keith was a fine actor who never quite became famous but graced many productions with his talent, as did Virginia Gregg and Milton Selzer. Although I was never a particular fan of Alan Sues of Laugh-In, in this he is nearly unrecognizable and gives a very good account of himself. Brooke Hayward was the daughter of the great Margaret Sullavan and proves that she inherited a lot of her mother's ability. There are people who think this is one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, but with its stereotypes and lopsided morality I would have to rank it as a well-acted failure. As she does with this episode, Ida Lupino generally proved a better director of TV episodes than she did of feature films. 

Verdict: Stay away from awful old men with money. **1/4. 

JENNIFER

Lisa Pelican

JENNIFER (1978). Director: Brice Mack. 

Jennifer Baylor (Lisa Pelikan) lives with her father, Luke (Jeff Corey), who runs a pet shop and is a borderline religious fanatic. Years ago Jennifer had the "gift," a power over snakes, which she seems to have lost. Jennifer attends an exclusive girls school on a scholarship, and innocently provokes the enmity of some of her classmates, especially a blond sociopath named Sandra (Amy Johnstone), whose camp follower is a chubby gal named Jane (Louise Hoven). When Sandra and her friends go too far with Jennifer, she unleashes her powers against them to exact revenge. 

Amy Johnstone and Louise Hoven

Jennifer is clearly modeled on the far superior Carrie, with many of the same elements from that more successful and original picture. However, this movie still retains a bit of power in its depiction of the sheer loathsomeness of some of the antagonists, the evils of peer pressure, and the reckless and entitled, even criminal attitude, of teenagers with too much money and little common sense or compassion. In fact, there's so much nastiness on hand that at times it seems like overkill. One effective sequence shows a trembling Jane on the phone with her tired, uncaring mother after the former has been sexually assaulted. (She and Jennifer eventually become allies.) Sequences like this have a certain power, and Jennifer might have worked as a dramatic film if it had stuck to that. 

Nina Foch, Amy Johnstone, John Gavin

Unfortunately, Jennifer is a horror film, and when it comes time to deliver the vengeance a la Carrie, the movie becomes laughably bad. Poor Lisa Pelikan is forced to adopt an attitude like a super-villainess casting spells, and the whole sequence is shot so poorly that you can hardly make out what's happening in any case. This insured that even if audiences liked the rest of the film, they went home sorely disappointed, although there is some catharsis in watching a few of the participants get their comeuppance. This includes the horrible, money-hungry headmistress, Mrs. Calley (Nina Foch), whose death isn't nearly miserable enough to suit most viewers. 

Nina Foch in outsized glasses

As for the acting, Lisa Pelikan -- while no Sissy Spacek in terms of presence -- gives a good enough performance, although in her uncompromising portrait of the unsavory Mrs. Calley Nina Foch walks off with the acting honors. Next is Amy Johnstone, who is blond viciousness personified, and Louise Hoven as the chubby girl who wants acceptance but finds she has made a deal with the devil. Jeff Corey is okay as the father, and John Gavin has a couple of scenes as Sandra's clueless and essentially uncaring father, Senator Tremayne. Burt Convy is amiable as the pleasant teacher, Mr. Reed, who tries to befriend Jennifer, and Ray Underwood is effective as Dayton, the venomous Sandra's equally psychopathic boyfriend. A small role is played by Cher's younger sister, Georganne LaPiere. The film holds the attention but its deliberate pacing may have some viewers hitting the stop button long before it's over.

Verdict: Another Carrie clone which has good scenes and acting but doesn't deliver in the long run. **1/4. 

SHORT TAKES

Dylan McDermott

THE CLOVEHITCH KILLER (2018). Director: Duncan Skiles. You would think that a movie about a boy (Charlie Plummer) who comes to suspect that his own father (Dylan McDermott) may be a notorious, long-term serial killer, would be a lot more compelling than this disappointing and flaccid entry. True, this is not meant to be a kind of Friday the 13th slasher film, but one doesn't need gore to make a fine suspense film, which this isn't. There are continuity problems, "off" moments, even if the acting is generally good. Comparing this to Hitchcock, as some have done, is ludicrous! Instead of provocative, this is just blah. **

UNKNOWN (2006). Director: Simon Brand. Five men wake up in a locked warehouse with no memory of who they are or how they got there, although they eventually figure out that two of them are kidnap victims and the rest are kidnappers. But which is which? Unknown holds the attention as the characters -- and the viewer -- switch loyalties back and forth, but ultimately this is disappointing and the twists not that special. The acting is good, however, with Greg Kinnear making an especially strong impression. **1/4.

Missy Yager

HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U (2019/Christopher Landon ) is the sequel to Happy Death Day. A machine worked on by Ryan (Phi Vu) has been creating time loops, one of which Ryan himself is caught in until Tree (Jessica Routhe) finds herself back in the loop of the first picture. She is then punched into a parallel dimension where her friends behave differently and her late mother (Missy Yager) is actually alive. The film is an uneasy combination of retreaded material with new tricks, and the occasional gross-out moments don't really fit the tone of the rest of the movie, which blends black comedy with sentiment. The movie has suspense, but is also ridiculous at times. Basically this is for easily pleased 14-year-olds. **1/4. 

Captain Marvel powers up

CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019). Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Kree warrior Vers (Brie Larson) discovers that she is actually an earthling named Carol Danvers (her Kree name comes from the last four letters of her surname) and due to an accidental infusion of energy (she absorbed the power of an exploding energy core) becomes the super-heroic and powerful Captain Marvel. In the Marvel comic books, the Kree race has been warring with the shape-changing Skrulls forever and neither are especially admirable, but in this picture the Skrulls are the good guys. In the comics the original Captain Marvel was a Kree male named Mar-Vell but in keeping with the film's "girl power" theme, that character is now played by Annette Benning! Frankly Captain Marvel is confusing even if you're familiar with the characters, and in the comics Carol Danvers was a much richer, more human, and interesting person. Aside from a chase on an elevated train, there are no memorable action scenes in the movie, which just seems messy and poorly choreographed, with a mediocre screenplay and storyline. (In the comics, the child Monica Rambeau became a different Captain Marvel -- as an adult -- who joined and for a while led the Avengers.) **.

Guy Pearce

SPINNING MAN (2019). Director: Simon Kaijser. Evan Birch (Guy Pearce) is a married philosophy professor who may be diddling with his students. When a teenage girl goes missing and strands of her hair are found in his car, Evan finds himself under the scrutiny of Detective Malloy (Pierce Brosnan) while Evan's wife (Minnie Driver) tries to keep her own suspicions under control and fails. The big problem with this well-acted suspense item is that it all leads up to absolutely nowhere. The characters -- cheating professor, worried wife, reformed alcoholic cop -- are stereotypes and never quite come to life beyond that. Ambiguity is all well and good but this just doesn't work. **.  

TENDER FLESH / WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH

TENDER FLESH /WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH (1974). Director: Laurence Harvey. 

Hitchhiker Robbin Stanley (Meg Foster) runs into Korean war veteran Jason Henry (Laurence Harvey, who also directed the film) on the beach in front of his large California home. Jason invites Robbin in for a meal and she is introduced to his sister, Grace (Joanna Pettet), who is jealous of the women he brings home due to her incestuous relationship with her brother. Although this is not spelled out in any detail, apparently Jason developed a taste for human flesh when he was lost and isolated during the war. Nearly becoming his next supper before escaping, Robbin tries to tell the authorities -- Deputy Rakes (Stuart Whitman) and Sheriff Bingham (John Ireland) -- how crazy and dangerous Jason is, but they think she's on drugs and don't believe her. With the help of a medical technician named Alex (David Macklin), Robbin re-enters the house of horrors to get more evidence. But both of them may have bitten off more than they can chew (pun intended). 

Laurence Harvey

Welcome to Arrow Beach was originally entitled Yellow-Headed Summer and Walter Pidgeon and Donna Reed were supposed to have been in the cast. The film was re-released under the more exploitative title Tender Flesh and had a major and more explicit advertising campaign: "You won't believe what's behind the meat locker door" and so on. In truth the movie definitely has its gruesome moments (in the uncut version) and there's actually more gore than in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which came out the same year. The horror highlight of the film is a basement murder where the killer takes photographs of the victim, and then literally butchers the woman with an ax, the whole slaughter tableau presented as brutal still pictures with flashing strobes, something that doesn't diminish the disturbing aspects of the sequence one bit.  

Gloria LeRoy

This was Laurence Harvey's last picture, and only one of two that he directed. His performance is excellent. He gets solid performances from Meg Foster and Joanna Pettet, and veterans Ireland and Whitman are typically professional. David Macklin makes a nice impression as Alex, as does Gloria LeRoy as an ill-fated middle-aged model that Jason also encounters on the beach after her paramour has robbed her. Altovise Gore Davis, the wife of Sammy Davis Jr., plays a deputy named Molly. By any name Welcome to Arrow Beach is an interesting if imperfect picture, with both pacing and structural problems, and a score that does very little to create needed suspense or terror, but it's worth a look if for no other reason than the presence of Laurence Harvey both behind and in front of the camera. 

Verdict: You will believe what's behind the meat locker door after that rather savage murder sequence. **1/2. 

SOLO

Robert Vaughn

SOLO: THE VULCAN AFFAIR (1964). Director: Don Medford. 

Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn), an agent for an international law enforcement group called U.N.CL.E., is given an assignment by his boss Mr. Allison (Will Kuluva)  after operatives of a sinister group named Thrush invade their headquarters. Allison has learned that a wealthy entrepreneur named Andrew Vulcan (Fritz Weaver) is now a member of Thrush, and that the group is planning to assassinate the premier, Ashumen (William Marshall), of a newly independent African nation at the opening of a new plant that will be a boon to his country. 

Pat Crowley and Fritz Weaver 

Solo importunes an old girlfriend of Vulcan's -- Elaine Bender (Pat Crowley), who is now married with children -- to pretend to be a wealthy widow and romance Vulcan at a glitzy Washington affair so she can pick up information. Meanwhile Solo tries to get data about the plant and both he and Elaine try to stop the assassination attempt. But the two have a surprise in store and both wind up almost in literal hot water. Rupert Crosse and Ivan Dixon play members of Ashumen's staff, and Joyce Taylor (of Atlantis the Lost Continent) shows up briefly as an UNCLE dispatcher who, improbably, sun bathes under a lamp and wears a bikini in the office. 

Will Kuluva as Mr. Allison

Solo was the 70 minute color pilot for the very popular TV series that was retitled The Man from U.N.C.L.E. after it was learned that a character with the last name of Solo would appear in Goldfinger. (James Bond creator Ian Fleming himself came up with the name Napoleon Solo when he did some initial work on the series that came to be UNCLE.) When the series made its debut, "The Vulcan Affair" was the first episode, but Will Kuluva was replaced with Leo G. Carroll as Mr. Waverly. As much as I like Carroll, Kuluva made a more believable head of a major spy agency. Carroll might have been cast because he played a somewhat similar role in Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest only a few years earlier. 

William Marshall

Robert Vaughn is both stylish and very effective as Solo. (At this point David McCallum was only in a supporting role as Illya Kuryakin and is on screen only a couple of minutes.) Pat Crowley, Fritz Weaver, and William Marshall (of Blacula fame) give their customary adept performances. Joyce Taylor may have been meant to be a kind of "Miss Moneypenny" to Vaughn's Bond, but she didn't last with the series. The producers of the show took the pilot, added about half an hour of new material (with Luciana Paluzzi as a Thrush agent), and released it in theaters as To Trap a Spy, retaining Kuluva as Allison but changing the name of Thrush to 'Wasp" for some odd contractual reasons. Later, this extra footage was edited into the first season episode "The Four-Steps Affair." It is not surprising that Solo was turned into a series, as the pilot is well-produced (even on a limited budget), generally well-scripted (despite some tiresome sixties-type sexist detours), and well-acted by all. (Although there never really seems to be a need to get a housewife involved in dangerous situations aside from the script calling for it.)  Later on the show degenerated nearly into an out and out comedy and its fate was sealed. 

Verdict: The birth of UNCLE. ***.  

THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF (1973)

Kerwin Mathews and Scott Sealey

THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF (1973). Director: Nathan Juran.

A divorced and somwhat chauvinistic father, Robert Bridgestone (Kerwin Mathews) and his young son, Richie (Scott Sealey), take off for a cabin in the mountains for a vacation. While there Robert saves his son from an attack by a strange person who bites Robert on the arm. Richie is convinced that the person who attacked them was a werewolf, and later that his own father has become one himself. A series of gruesome dismemberment murders in the area have the police stymied, but no one will believe Richie. 

Mathews begins his transformation

The Boy Who Cried Werewolf is the last film directed by Nathan Juran, who worked with star Kerwin Mathews on two fantasy adventure pictures, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and Jack the Giant Killer. The premise of this film is a good one, but not enough is done with it. A big problem is the fact that while Mathews made a fine swashbuckling hero in the aforementioned movies, in this his acting is insufficient. Little Scott Sealey gives an earnest performance and is a likable youngster, but he doesn't quite hit the mark, either. Elaine Devry is more than acceptable as the boy's mother, and there are some flavorful character performances sprinkled throughout. 

Kerwin Mathews and Elaine Devry

The movie has uneven scoring and missed opportunities, although there are some exciting action sequences, such as when the werewolf attacks a trailer and some other people and causes a great deal of havoc. A psychiatrist who accepts the werewolf explanation much too easily (even if he's right!) is savagely murdered, but unfortunately the shrill, annoying head of a hippie commune is spared that fate. The make up by Tom Burnam is good even if one might question the werewolf's pompadour. 

Verdict: A boy and his werewolf. **1/2.

THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET

Chuck Connors

THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET (CBS telefilm/1973). Director: David Lowell Rich. 

Captain Slade (Chuck Connors of Hot Rod Girl) is flying a passenger plane from Heathrow airport to New York. Architect Alan O'Neill (Roy Thinnes of The Invaders) is shipping, via the cargo hold, an altar, among other items, from an abbey that was built over a place of Druid sacrifice. Another passenger, Mrs. Pinder (Tammy Grimes), failed to stop Alan from taking the altar from England via legal means but is planning to try again in New York. Meanwhile, once the flight takes off, Alan's wife, Sheila (Jane Merrow), begins hearing frightening voices. And the cargo bay begins to develop a frigid atmosphere that quick-freezes the poor flight navigator (Russell Johnson). Before long there's a full-stage panic aboard the plane as Slade tries to get his ship out of an unholy wind and the passengers fight against the demonic force in the cargo bay. 

William Shanter, Jane Merrow, Roy Thinnes

The Horror at 37,000 Feet is one of a great many made-for-TV horror films that proliferated during the seventies, and it's an entertaining picture, although anyone expecting a masterpiece of terror will be disappointed. Despite the absurdities of the plot and some of the situations, the movie is fast-paced and harrowing enough to easily help the viewer suspend disbelief. A big plus for the production is the way the entire cast plays so well together even after things get seriously weird and some of the characters become understandably hysterical. Although William Shatner [Dead Man's Island] doesn't quite get a handle on his role as an ex-priest, generally playing in too perfunctory a style (but at least not over-acting), Conners is solid and Tammy Grimes excellent as the strange Mrs. Pinder. 

Buddy Ebsen and Will Hutchins

Being a TV movie, it's no surprise that the film is full of TV stars, including the already named along with Buddy Ebsen (as a wealthy entrepreneur) and Will Hutchins (as a cowboy star in foreign movies) with Paul Winfield and Lynn Lowry along for the ride. The whole thing reminds one of a slightly longer episode of Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, and works on that level. One wishes there had been more outside shots of the plane in flight to remind viewers that everyone is miles up in the air, adding another degree of fear and tension to the proceedings. France Nuyen plays a model and H. M. Wynant is a co-pilot. Jane Merrow is an English actress who did a lot of work on American television (as well as British TV series) and appeared in such films as Hands of the Ripper and Island of the Burning Damned; she is fine. Creepy theme music by Morton Stevens. 

Verdict: Don't watch before booking your next plane trip. ***. 

THE INTRUDER (2019)

Dennis Quaid

THE INTRUDER (2019). Director: Deon Taylor. 

An affluent young couple, Scott (Michael Ealy) and Annie (Meagan Good) buy a beautiful estate from the previous owner, a widower named Charlie (Dennis Quaid). Charlie seems more than  helpful at first, but although he was supposed to have moved to Florida, he is always hanging around his old house. Annie feels compassion for the lonely man, but Scott is creeped out by Charlie's actions and is sure he is attracted in an unhealthy fashion to his wife. Then before you can say Cold Creek Manor (a film with a very similar plot in which Quaid played the new owner), violent things begin to happen ... 

Michael Ealy

The Intruder is entertaining enough in a minor fashion and it holds the attention. There are some disquieting moments as well. Ealy, Good and Joseph Sikora as the couple's friend Mike are all effective, but the film is stolen by a dynamic, mesmerizing performance by Dennis Quaid, who slowly unveils the madness while retaining much of the character's casual charm. If there's any problem with the film it's that it holds no surprises and is fairly predictable. Deon Taylor's direction is adequate but the film is by no means a brilliant or sharp suspense film. And let me make it clear that I don't believe there was any political or racist intent in making the main couple black and the villain white, as these characters could have been played by actors of any race. 

Verdict: Perfectly okay for a rainy afternoon but no classic. **1/2.