Planet of the Apes (1968)

Director: Franklin J. Schaffner

Cast: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Maurice Evans, Kim Hunter

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. Those far-flung summers where all I need out of life was what I’ve come to think of as the Albertson’s Special. Some chicken from the Deli, and five VHS (kids, ask your parents) rentals (kids, ask your parents) from the grocery video department (kids, ask your grandparents). Perfectly fit for five-film franchises (at the time) of varying quality, like this or the Superman films (yes, I’m counting Supergirl (1984), and you should, too; it’s better than Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)).

Man, to live again in a time when cholesterol and VHS tapes were all one needed on a hot day…

Did I Like It: If you’re reading this review, you’ve probably already seen the movie. Or, at least, you’ve seen the last few seconds of it. The ending was ruined a good fifteen years before I was ever born. But, if you’re a fan of that particular brand of pulpy sci-fi (read: the kind of stuff at which Arthur C. Clarke, and by extension, Stanley Kubrick, would turn up their noses), then there is hardly a movie I could recommend more. One might be tempted—before getting into either actor’s later politics—to say that Heston is really just bringing the same schtick to the big screen Shatner was still using to make his living on the original Star Trek. Maybe it’s hard to wander around the any American western desert in a torn spacesuit and not evoke something resembling Shatner. That feels like a complaint, but it isn’t. It’s an attempt to bring in more eyes who have just seen the Statue of Liberty (crap, now I’ve gone ahead and spoiled it too) to a movie that has more than few other pleasures to offer.

In The Mouth of Madness (1994)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Porchnow, Charlton Heston

Have I seen it Before: Oh, sure. Oddly enough, my strongest memory of the film comes not from the film itself, but from the TV spots, ominously warning a ten-year-old me that, “In 1978, he scared you with… <Halloween>… In 1983, he terrified you with… <Christine>… His name is John Carpenter. It’s 1995.” Definitely inflamed the imagination, considering that was at a time when I had seen none of those films. Then again, if the ad campaign only served to entrance ten-year-old boys who couldn’t get a ticket under their own power, no wonder the film (yet again, for Carpenter) tanked at the box office.

Did I Like It: The man was ahead of his time, though. This would be right at home with many of the elevated horror films coming out today. No wonder Carpenter doesn’t really want to make films anymore. He’s pretty much already made every kind of film that might be able to get any kind of money behind it*.

Or maybe Carpenter was at exactly the right place and time to make this movie. Between this and <Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)>, there was a brief moment, just post-proper-Krueger where New Line was willing to embrace meta-horror before the movies really hadn’t even tried to grasp such a concept.

Philosophically, I’d say it’s a good thing that Memoirs of an Invisible Man happened, even if that film doesn’t amount to much of anything. It brough Neill and Carpenter together. Given Neill’s association with <Jurassic Park (1993)>, he was probably able to get any number of films off the ground, and that he was more into the idea of a Lovecraft-infused Carpenter horror picture. He provides an interesting counterpoint to Carpenter’s normal muse, Kurt Russell. It’s nice when Number 1 on the call sheet is an Olympic level asshole, but number 2 becomes your buddy.

My only qualm, and it is a minor one, is that the climax feels alternately cheap and rushed, to the point where the eldritch-y horror of the whole thing culminates in what amounts to a clip show of the movie I just watched. A constraint of budget, or a nervous studio dealing with an auteur who hadn’t had a hit in a number of years**, but I smell a film whose true ambitions for Weird-with-a-capital-w didn’t make it to opening weekend. Somebody ought to write a book about all the films of the early-to-mid nineties that mutated heavily in the editing room. Maybe I should…?

*Other than a superhero film. Could you imagine? Then again, <Starman (1992)> and <Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)> are out there. That probably shouldn’t count.

**Doubtful, as the head of production at the studio was the screenwriter, although a quick look at IMDB might point to some New Nightmare envy, especially after one of the only films for the studio he wrote was <Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991).>

Touch of Evil (1958)

Director: Orson Welles

Cast: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, Orson Welles

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. But I’m relatively certain I haven’t seen it since release of the restored version in 2008, which brought the film closer to the version detailed in Welles’ long-ignored notes made after Universal took the film away from him*.

Did I Like It: There are two things that stick in my mind most about this, one of Welles’ few studio-backed films. First, the conversation in Ed Wood (1994) between Wood (Johnny Depp) and Welles (Vincent D’Onofrio, but voiced by Maurice LaMarche**) where Welles complains that he’s about to make a thriller at Universal, and they’re insisting he cast “Charlton Heston as a Mexican.” Even Wood wouldn’t go that far. Essentially, this movie has all the trappings of a B-movie, and that is by no means meant as a dig. Gleeful, energetic, and as innovative as the form will allow (as directed by one of the few verifiable genius to have ever helmed a picture), it still is probably aggressively mis-cast, and every moment is meant to tantalize. It’s not art; it is pure entertainment.

And just as there’s nothing wrong with a film being a B-picture, there’s also nothing wrong with it being made for the sole purpose of entertainment. That’s because the second thing that always sticks in my mind about the movie is that opening shot. If ever a movie about corruption and explosions could reach for art, it was under this man and it would be this movie.

*If there’s one thing Orson Welles knew how to do, it was get a film taken away from him.

**Incidentally—and you know I’ve given this question at least an inch of thought—this is the best casting of Welles ever.