Macbeth (1948)

Director: Orson Welles

Cast: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O’Herlihy, Roddy McDowall

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I know. I’m a fraud. Do I turn my credentials into you or is there some kind of central office to which I need to mail it.

Did I Like It: I mean, right out of the gate, I’m thinking… Gee, he even managed to give the witches Scottish accents. As the film proceeds, nearly every character (maybe not so much Dan O’Herlihy’s Macduff, but you can’t win them all). You don’t see that in every filmed adaptation of the Scottish play. Hell, at times it feels like the Scottish accent is the single most misappropriated in the history of the motion picture, but then again, that might be mostly tied to Sean Connery and his vague insistence to never play a Scotsman, but instead play every other nationality on the Earth as if they were Scottish.

Here in this film, the big budgets of the studios had departed, and were never to quite return (with the possible exception of Touch of Evil (1958), but this is where the least spoken about parts of Welles’ genius (and he was a genius, despite what the vagaries of Hollywood might have tried to do to it) comes into full, undeniable bloom. 

Even when the money had run out, and the eyes of power not only ignored Welles but were content (and not entirely incorrect) in their assessment that they had destroyed him, he was still committed to making a film that always engages, and often surprises. Welles is—from the film’s first few moments—reaching for something a bit better than the average, and in ways that people would have never noticed/forgiven him. This is a b-movie in the resources brought to bear, but that doesn’t mean it has to accept its lowly status. It will always reach to be one for the ages. Failure is acceptable (it does not fail), but it would be in accepting limitations that things become irretrievably lost.

One note? While Mercury stalwart Jeanette Nolan equates herself well as Lady Macbeth, I can’t help but wonder if Welles had only met Eartha Kitt earlier. Had she played the character, the film just might have been as memorable (if not necessarily better) than Citizen Kane (1941).

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1983)

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace

Cast: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O’Herlihy, Michael Currie

Have I Seen it Before: I mean, almost always under protest, but yeah…

Did I Like It: There’s seems to be a moment in the life of every reviled sequel where people travel full circle on the spectrum of hating a movie to then turning around and insisting that a the film is not just better than we remember it, but in fact a secret work of genius.

Both reactions smack of being disingenuous.

This film isn’t quite as bad as it was judged on early reactions. Indeed, the film possesses both a John Carpenter score and cinematography from Dean Cundey. Those two elements alone would recommend a film on spec. 

The story is interesting enough, for the most part, if a little derivative of other films. Indeed, the initial hostile reaction to the film was not only too strong, but likely short-sighted. Had moviegoers gone for it more enthusiastically, then the series might have continued with its anthology hopes, and we could have gotten an army of Carpenter-produced (and scored) films with Dean Cundey’s camerawork before the bloom fully fell off the jack-o-lantern. It would have distinguished the series far better from its contemporaries, at the very least.

But, really? The movie kind of sucks. Maybe it establishes mood more effectively than the subsequent sequels even attempted. Maybe it goes to the wall with its bleak aesthetic and leaves it up to the viewer as to whether every kid in America is going to get their skull eaten by Stonehenge-powered Halloween masks…

And when I write that last sentence, the whole damn falls apart. First of all, why is every kid in America only interested in these three masks? Did no one want to be Batman for Halloween? Frankenstein’s Monster? Hell, Michael Myers (especially as the original Halloween (1978) is airing throughout the film)? Who the hell wants to be a Jack-o-Lantern? 

Beyond the fundamental implausibility of the whole conceit, the special effects we’re subjected to during this process are ridiculous to the point of being embarrassing. They take me right out of the movie…

But I still can’t help but wonder what the series would have looked like in another world…