CRUISE CONTROL

Further to my earlier post : According to the industry and the media Universal's reboot of THE MUMMY is a box-office flop. Generally bad reviews have contributed to predictions that this might mean the early demise of the planned "Dark Universe" franchise.  Whatever the reasons for the failure it seems that everybody is eager to heap the blame on star Tom Cruise citing his "micro-management" of the production. The fact that the film was helmed by a relatively inexperienced director who, reportedly, was rather overwhelmed by the scale of the production seems to have been largely passed over. Cruise is well known to be a control freak when it comes to his films. So why did they hire him? Tom Cruise, in my opinion, is a pretty good actor, but it must never be forgotten that "Tom Cruise" is a product which Cruise, the actor, guards jealously. His reported interference in THE MUMMY has resulted in the film having the highest grossing box-office take of any Tom Cruise film. Tom knows exactly what he is doing and, surely, if you hire him it seem rather unfair to start moaning when he does it. Director Alex Kurtzman had only directed one film, the modest family drama PEOPLE LIKE US, before taking on the multi-million dollar MUMMY, although he has had a long and honourable career as a writer and producer. I'm sure that Tom Cruise will laugh all the way to the bank and, ironically, I suspect that, ultimately, so will Universal. If that happens that will almost certainly be thanks to Tom Cruise.

"I did it my way....."

PUSHOVER (1954) Directed by Richard Quine.

Richard Quine's PUSHOVER is a terrific film noir, rarely mentioned among the greats but fully worthy of that honour. It is also beautiful Kim Novak's first credited film appearance and it is easy to see why Columbia's Harry Cohn wanted to promote her as a star to replace Rita Hayworth. Fred MacMurray was an interesting actor. In later years he became associated with the television series MY THREE SONS and a stint with Disney which promoted him as a comfy father figure but he was much more interesting in the earlier days of his career when he was a perfect film noir lead. He was totally believable in the classic DOUBLE JEOPARDY and here in PUSHOVER because he always looked the type of guy who could be tempted by a femme fatale. Of course, things didn't go well for him once Barbara  Stanwyck or Kim Novak had finished with him. PUSHOVER is beautifully photographed by Lester White, with almost the entire film taking place at night. Supporting cast is top-notch with Phil Carey, E.G.Marshall and Dorothy Malone. Script by Roy Huggins from a Thomas Walsh novel.  Rating ****

HALDANE OF THE SECRET SERVICE (1923) Directed by Harry Houdini.

Harry Houdini is one of those historical characters that really interests me. Magician, Escape Artist, Aviation pioneer, Author, Publisher, exposer of fake mediums and secret agent for both British and American governments. Sadly, although he also produced, directed and starred in several films his cinematograph work was not among his more noteworthy achievements. Fascinated as I am by his career, I jumped at the chance to buy three of his movies. The first, THE MAN FROM BEYOND starts well, looking like a sequel to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein  as artic explorers discover a man frozen in a block of ice on a wrecked ship. Unfortunately nothing that follows is as interesting and the print is quite dreadful. TERROR ISLAND is better, both in print quality (just) and story as Harry, a submarine inventor, travels to a distant island where an explorer has been captured by natives while searching for sunken treasure. It has something of the atmosphere of an old serial but that is about all. Lastly comes HALDANE OF THE SECRET SERVICE, directed by Houdini himself. After a good start involving switched bags the film settles down to be dull, dull, dull. The hero is on the track of a ruthless counterfeit gang led by a Fu Manchu type villain who was responsible for the death of his father. There is potential here but the film is determinedly talky (no mean feat in a silent film) as the characters endless explain things to each other. But, of course, there are pluses. Under any circumstances it is good to see Houdini on film and, surprisingly, the film contains a fair amount of location filming in Glasgow, Hull, London and Paris, presumably done while Houdini was on tour.
The oddest thing about these films is Houdini seems to have no great interest in exploiting his enviable reputation as an escape artist and there are few examples of what he did best in these films.. If you have any interest in Houdini then these DVDs are a must, whatever the quality. They are both disappointing and essential.

THE MAN FROM BEYOND (1919) directed by Burton King. *
TERROR ISLAND (1922) directed by James Cruze *
HALDANE OF THE SECRET SERVICE (1923) directed by Harry Houdini *

OLD MONSTERS NEVER DIE.....

Harry Treadaway as Victor Frankenstein and Rory Kinnear as his creature in PENNY DREADFUL.

The monsters are back! They live! They walk among us again. Thankfully, I don't mean the serial killers, maniacs or torturers that have infested our film and television screen for too long. I'm talking about the genuine article. You may have noticed that over the last few years there has been a revival of classic literary and cinematic monsters on both big and small screens. Some time back Universal revived their classic Egyptian mummy character, Im-Ho-Tep. True, he didn't look a lot like he did back in 1932 when played by Boris Karloff, but the film was fun and resulted in some fun spinoffs.
Then Dracula himself was back in a television film, a min-series and a feature film, DRACULA UNTOLD. Then there was THE FRANKENSTEIN CHRONICLES (soon to be followed by a second series) which featured elements of the original story and included Mary Shelley herself as a character.
Charlie Higson gave us JEKYLL AND HYDE which told of the original Jekyll's grandson coping with the family curse as well as bunch of other monsters, including Spring Heeled Jack. and various monster makers and hunters causing havoc in 1930's London. To my mind the best of all was the television series PENNY DREADFUL which quite convincingly managed to combine Victor Frankenstein, three of his creatures, Dorian Gray, witches, exorcisms, resurrectionists, Dr.Jekyll, Dracula and a werewolf in one narrative. Strong stuff.

"I'll be back!"

For a few years now there have been various turns at updating GODZILLA and Peter Jackson gave the mighty KING KONG a remake. The Godzilla people have now done a complete reboot of the Kong story in KONG : SKULL ISLAND with the avowed intention of reuniting the two monsters for KING KONG VS. GODZILLA in the not too distant future.

The Mummy (2017)

At the moment Universal Studios, as well as promoting their impressive backlog of classic movie monsters (yet again) are launching monster universe with yet another rethink of THE MUMMY which manages to include Russell Crowe as Dr.Henry Jekyll! We are promised, for the future, not only Johnny Depp as THE INVISIBLE MAN but the possibility of Dwayne Johnson as THE WOLFMAN, Xavier Bardem as FRANKENSTEIN and Angelina Jolie as THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. " A World of Gods and Monsters", indeed.

The boys are back in town.

LES RIVIERES POURPRES/Crimson Rivers (2000) Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz.

This one, I found in a charity shop. For some reason this seems to have slipped under my radar until now. I love French thrillers and this one has a lot going for it: unfamiliar locations in the French Pyrenees, very gruesome and, above all, two top charismatic French actors sparring of each other, Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel. It is, perhaps, not the greatest plot, with the twist being signalled long in advance but the two stars make the whole thing enjoyable enough (just as Morgan Freeman was able to carry the also not very original ALONG CAME A SPIDER which I watched the same day). I enjoyed it enough to look forward to catching up with THE CRIMSON RIVERS 2 : ANGELS OF THE APOCALYPSE, although, Cassel is not around for that one. It does, however,  have the late Christopher Lee. Good for a rainy day. Rating ***