Labyrinth (1986)

Director: Jim Henson

Cast: David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Toby Froud, Brian Henson

Have I Seen it Before: Yes, and I can’t 100% remember when it might have happened. I missed it in my youth entirely, and by the time I did catch it in my 20s, my brain wasn’t in a place to take in any level of magic like Henson had to offer at the height of his powers.

Did I Like It: And I still think I may have missed the moment where this film would have burrowed into my brain in the way for which it was designed. Every moment is visually interesting (even the stuff that doesn’t quite work, i.e. some rudimentary CGI in the film’s early moments). Henson never stopped innovating, even if this squarely falls in the category of films where Henson took himself too seriously. I wouldn’t insist he only make the goofiest of Muppet movies, but I certainly know where my preferences lie.

I don’t dislike Bowie, but he’s never been a big part of my life, so the film already runs at a disadvantage. I enjoy Connelly a great deal, but I’m mainly thinking of her work in The Rocketeer (1991).

Which brings me to the thing about the film I just can’t—regardless of my generally unwavering respect for Henson and his work—wrap my head around. No, it’s not that the film never feels like it is anything other than an `80s film. It’s far more unnerving than that, although that would normally be enough for me to look down on a film. I’m reasonably sure we’re supposed to be swept away by the imagination and fantasy of the proceedings, but are we not also supposed to be pointedly creeped out by Jareth (Bowie) spending most of the film’s runtime leering after a teenage girl (Connelly)? It’s difficult to try to view the idea of marriage between these two characters as anything other than prurient when the aggressor is one of the most sexual figures ever to rise to the height of pop cultural consciousness.

Yes, it is quite clear either the movie missed me at the time it might have hit me harder, or I may be missing the point of the film entirely now. Nevertheless, there is a disconnect. 

Donnie Darko (2001)

Director: Richard Kelly

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Duval

Have I Seen it Before: I don’t think you get through college in the early `00s without having seen it.

Did I Like It: Seeing the film nearly twenty years after my first viewing, I’m still digesting (and probably will until I soon record an episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods) it all, and the only thing I can confidently say as I type these words is that I’m not sure if I ever did, but I am glad I did not watch the director’s cut of the film here.

To read descriptions of that longer version online, any ounce of subtext was sucked out of the film and we are left at the end knowing precisely the why and how of the jet engine and how Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) fits into the whole mythos. 

And that would have been terrible. The film might very well be operating solely on its affectations, but the best way I can possibly observe the film through that lens is that those affectations give the film a certain charm. Removing all of the subtext makes it an exceedingly intricate time travel story.

Now far be it for me to look my nose down on an exceedingly intricate time travel story, but at a certain point if you’re having to rely on long passages from a book that doesn’t actually exist, you may have focused less on a work of cinema and veered into a powerpoint presentation. It’s not the same thing. 

But enough about what the version of the film I watched wasn’t, how did the theatrical cut hold up? It might be a film that’s singularly built for people in their twenties, and while the lilting Gary Jules cover of “Mad World” still has a haunting quality, and Donnie is never more heroic than when he calls Patrick Swayze’s preening self-help-guru-with-a-secret the Anti-Christ, the whole thing doesn’t hit like it used to. As you get older, it may very well be harder to appreciate new art. I’m just a little disappointed that art I used to enjoy is hard to hold onto.

The Great Muppet Caper (1981)

Director: Jim Henson

Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz, Jerry Nelson

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. A VHS recording from a local UHF station in the `80s became a regular staple in my house growing up. As much as I had uncertainty that I actually had seen The Muppet Movie (1979) in the past, that doubt was completely absent here.

Did I Like It: I can feel the criticisms of this movie as I watch it. It’s too jokey. It’s too irreverent. It’s too—dare I say it—clever?

Those people are wrong. The entirety of Henson’s output has been a concerted fight between goofing off (anything with the proper Muppets) and more earnest whimsy (anything Disney decided wasn’t worth buying after Henson died). This is the peak of that former mold, and it is in every way authored by Henson. Whereas The Muppet Movie (1979) had to shoulder the not insignificant burden of proving that the Muppets could even conceivably work on the silver screen, everyone could relax here and dwell on the absurdity that are the confines of a movie. Preposterously bad casting of family members (a running gag has Fozzie (Oz) and Kermit (Henson) as twin brothers) , credits (“Nobody reads those names anyway, do they?” “Sure. They all have families.”) and the very notion of exposition (“It has to go somewhere.”). All of it is picked apart directly in the movie and singularly fuels the best parts of the Muppet’s sense of humor in movies to come.

But in that wry sense of the absurd, in that chasing of the laugh, the film doesn’t try to shed the things that made the Muppets beloved in the first place. The Happiness Hotel might very well be the nastiest hotel that the movies have ever brought us (I include The Overlook from The Shining (1980) in that calculus), but who wouldn’t want to stay there when Dr. Teeth (Henson) the Electric Mayhem (feat. Rowlf (also Henson*) are around? It’s not just that the Muppets are lovable, it’s impossible to not want to be around the characters whenever possible.

*My working theory after also spending some time watching The Muppet Show? Dr. Teeth is merely a vaguely humanesque suit that Rowlf wears for certain gigs

The Muppet Movie (1979)

Director: James Frawley

Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt

Have I Seen it Before: You know… I can only say I’m kind of sure I have. Large portions call up a memory, but others are a complete blank. Ours may have been more of a The Great Muppet Caper (1981) house.

Did I Like It: Is it even possible to dislike the Muppets? Especially in that uniquely, brazenly period of cascading creativity when Jim Henson wielded these characters to their maximum potential?

No one would have been considered controversial if they spent the `70s convinced that Kermit (Henson) and company were a phenomenon that could not move beyond the scope of television shows like Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. They are funny, and they are cute. But can anything surpass the confines of television when, by their very nature have to be shot from the waist up?

That wasn’t enough for Henson*. He proceeded to make a movie that is just as funny and charming as his television work, but credibly lets the characters inhabit the big screen. Cameos abound, and any movie filled with that many famous people would be almost automatically considered a case of subtraction by addition. But here, it’s somehow both expected and adds to the material. Everyone fits into the movie like. puzzle piece, and it’s just an absolute head scratcher that Orson Welles didn’t end up guest starring on The Muppet Show, considering how fond he was of Henson’s work.

And what’s more, this is just the opening salvo in Henson’s brief quest to see just how far his deceptively simple puppets could go. One could only imagine how far he might have gone if he had lived just a bit longer.

* He didn’t direct the film or write it, but anyone who thinks he’s not the author of any Muppet production prior to his death is kidding themselves.

The French Dispatch (2021)

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux

Have I Seen it Before: No… Although I did spend 2021 reading most of every edition printed in that year of The New Yorker, so even before the first frame reached my eyes, the film felt familiar.

Did I Like It: It’s a bit sad to report that—unlike the rest of Anderson’s films—this film is merely equal to the sum of its parts. It is meticulously designed. To receive anything less from Anderson would feel like a betrayal. It is persistently charming, and more than occasionally quite amusing. There are few filmmakers working today who work at every level of the filmmaking process to eschew viewer’s expectations of how a film should be put together.

Beyond his normal bag of tricks, Anderson does reach for new surprises beyond putting out the most singularly twee films ever imagined. Several shots in “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner” credibly look like they might have actually been shot in the 1940s. Has any modern director convincingly made a film which feels as if it could have been shot at any other time than the precise moment in which it was produced? A timeless quality will help the film age better than most.

Some might be put off by the aspect ratio, but looking at the shot composition as something akin to the column inches of a publication makes the entire affair fit together like a meticulously crafted work of art, which serves as more evidence that Anderson has once again hit its target.

And yet, not all of the film adds up in a completely satisfying manner. The connective through-line for the film—involving the death of Dispatch publisher Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray, channeling the same understated energy he has brought to a number of Anderson’s films)—is the least engaging main plot of any film in Anderson’s oeuvre. The sudden switch to animation feels jarring. I can’t imagine Anderson didn’t mean to do it that way, but it doesn’t feel as if he did… which does ten to fly in the face of the ethos of the whole film.

And yet, I can’t say I didn’t dislike the film entirely, either. I don’t know if I could stand to read one more word of The New Yorker, but I wouldn’t mind thumbing through an issue or two of the Dispatch. If the slavish homage can outpace the source, then the flaws of either may not matter anymore.

Fletch (1985)

Director: Michael Ritchie

Cast: Chevy Chase, Joe Don Baker, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Tim Matheson

Have I Seen it Before: Most definitely. Here’s an odd moment of stupidity from my past: I’m at an opening night screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). When Frodo (Elijah Wood) identifies himself as Mr. Underhill, I am the only voice in the theater who barks out a beat of laughter. I did this because I was reminded of this film.

Did I Like It: If a movie star’s greatest film is ultimately that movie for which they were most present during their performance, I have a very dim view for any other film being Chase’s greatest. There are any number of films (and more than a few episodes of my beloved Community) where he is demonstrably asleep at the wheel, and I’m not even entirely sure any of the various Clark Griswold outings would count.

Clark Griswold is a put upon family man, Fletch (or at least, the Fletch presented in this film, as opposed to the Fletch of numerous Gregory McDonald) is a quip machine who is perpetually in matters just over his head. Now, which one of these men do you think is more firmly in Chase’s wheelhouse? I’ll wait for my answer.

This is not to say that the film is without—or even manages to avoid being riddled with—flaws. Is anyone buying the idea that Tim Matheson and Chevy Chase are the same build, and that that is enough to prop up the plot here? It was enough to work in the McDonald novel, but I would have liked to have seen a little more-than-perfunctory work on adapting the novel, so as to not let such a glaring plot hole run throughout the entire proceedings. Also, as much as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is (with his Sherlockian streak) a delightful and welcome presence in a comedy film, the basketball fantasy sequence could have been pulled right out, the film wouldn’t have suffered, and we would have been speared a fearful portent of the comedic dead weight Chase was doomed to become.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

Director: David Blue Garcia

Cast: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnahm, Moe Dunford

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I honestly only have the vaguest of memories of the first film (1974) and the remake (2003).

Did I Like It: That all being said, the film immediately operates from a disadvantage in that it is slavishly following current trends in horror. Having a legacy sequel is one thing, and I’ve largely enjoyed the trend (even if it has become ubiquitous for every franchise under the sun) but entire swaths of this movie are pulled directly from the far more innovative Halloween (2018). That leaves the film with not much to prop it up other than being purely derivative. There are few moments in this film that feel derivative.

Come to think of it, does this really qualify as a legacy sequel? There are two characters here who appear in the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and they are both portrayed by different actors. John Larroquette returns as the narrator, but if that makes it count, it’s a marginal call at best.

In truth, the only elements which feel at all fresh (I would’t go as far as to say original) are parts that don’t add up. The various adventures of Leatherface (Burnham) have always reached for the truly disgusting. That’s their appeal. Aside from a brief flash of a chainsaw-as-penis metaphor and an unfortunate mishap with a sewer pipe, this film is tame. 

It’s been a few days since my screening of the film, and I can’t quite wrap my head around the rationale for why these young people have descended upon the town of Harlow? How did they get the money together to buy up this town? There’s also a moment where, just before becoming so much fodder for Leatherface’s chainsaw, that one of the cell-phone wielding goons threatens to cancel the maniac. Is this movie some millenlial-real-estate-fever-dream? Or is it trying to own the libs? Do I want either of these films?

When the film isn’t derivative, unnervingly tame, or inexplicable, well, it’s probably over at that point because there isn’t anything else to it. You may have already paid for the film, given its Netflix distribution, so it does still qualify as an hour and a half spent with more enjoyment than ditch digging, but not by much.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Director: James Whale

Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Ernest Thesiger, Elsa Lancaster

Have I Seen it Before: Many, many times. My earliest memory of the film ties directly to a Universal Monsters coloring book released in the 1990s. At this point, I just need to find another copy of that thing, right? Beyond that, I plum wore out a VHS recording from Turner Classic Movies. One of the more purely delightful moviegoing experiences in my life was going to a library-hosted* screening of the film in the early 00s**. When I first joined Beyond the Cabin in the Woods, this was my first choice for a movie for the polterguides to watch. The idea that it has taken this long to re-watch the film since starting these reviews in 2018 is kind of flabbergasting, but after watching <Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)> for my guest spot on Horror Hangover, I just couldn’t help myself.

Yes. Yes, I have seen Bride of Frankenstein before.

Did I Like It: There’s isn’t much more I can do to tip my hand after that previous section and its myriad footnotes. Bride is the greatest of the Universal Monster movies, is in my top 10 films of all time, and may just edge out Halloween (1978) as my favorite horror movie of all time***.

It is weird. It is funny far more often than it has any right to be. Every character, from Mary Shelley (Lancaster) in he film’s prologue, all the way to the Bride’s (Lancaster, again) arrival in the finale—is more interesting and vibrant than the one who appeared just before. The film is heartbreaking and often filled with a perfectly packaged, unrelenting sense of dread.

And it accomplishes all of this in the span of 75 minutes. If a measure of cinematic efficiency—with pleasures-over-runtime being the metric—is at all a fair judge of film, then this is the single most efficient feature film ever made.

If you haven’t seen this movie before, you must stop everything you are doing and watch it now. If it’s been a while, you need to drop everything and be reminded how truly good it is. If you’ve watched it recently, there is no harm in giving it another go, just as a treat.

*It’s honestly at the core of a lot of the work I’m trying to do at the moment, now that I’m thinking about it.

**It had been a date, no less. Needless to say, things didn’t work out. The films of James Whale may not be the opening romantic salvo that I always thought they should be, but I’m blessed to have ended up with someone who at least tolerates the Universal Monsters.

***Such rankings are arbitrary. At any given moment, this movie or Halloween is superior. They both rank, and very likely may be equal in their superlative quality.

Vampires vs. The Bronx (2020)

Director: Oz Rodriguez

Cast: Jaden Michael, Gerald W. Jones, III, Gregory Diaz, IV, Sarah Gadon

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Had it not been for Horror Hangover, on which I will guesting here presently, the film likely would have flown right under my radar.

Did I Like It: First of all, if Jaden Michael isn’t on the short list for an eventual live-action interpretation of Miles Morales, or if Marvel takes too long so that he would age out of the role, then there isn’t really any justice in this world.

There isn’t any justice in this world, is there?

I can’t readily think of a film which presents a vampire tale with the same perfect blend of irreverence and actual genre acumen which Edgar Wright brought to Shaun of the Dead (2004), or even Mel Brooks did for the classic Universal Frankenstein films in Young Frankenstein (1974). 

There is nothing to not love in the film, so much so that it could have rested on the laurels of its cast and care with vampires to get the job done. However, the filmmakers have managed to also pull off the impossible, and add a new layer to the vampire mythos, a concept so desiccated that if you had told me there was anything new under the sun*, I would have scoffed and probably made a point not to catch the film at all.

One of the themes of the original novel, Dracula (and to a lesser extent, cinematic interpretations of that story including Nosferatu (1922), Dracula (1931), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)) was how the Count’s manipulation of real estate was just as insidious as any of his hematophagy, as his foreign influence on the Western world was a specter in and of itself. Here, this idea is inverted and the gentrification of close-knit neighborhoods is seen as the first step of true horror. It’s such a simple idea, I can’t imagine the filmmakers didn’t sit around wondering if it hadn’t been already done before.

*Sometimes you just have to accept the inevitable word choice that’s coming straight at you. Sometimes you can fight that inevitability. This was definitely one of the first type.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Director: Charles Barton

Cast: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, yes. Delighted to finally have an excuse to screen it again.

Did I Like It: I may have tipped my hand with the answer to the previous question.

This film is strange. On paper, there is literally no reason why it should work. The Universal Monsters had already run their course, going through the basest, pulpy motions of endless monster mashups. Abbott and Costello were at the beginning of the unravelling of their partnership. It could have been an absolute disaster. 

And yet, it’s one of, if not the best of both the Universal Monster* and Abbott and Costello movies**. For one thing, it works as both a horror movie and comedy of the period. But far more importantly, is that for one final hurrah, it feels like Universal finally started caring about its stable of monsters again. Previously, the films had descended into increasingly lazy monster rallies, but here, even though it reaches the heights of ridiculousness, it’s actually a halfway decent finale for the characters. The Wolf Man (Chaney), the Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange, the record holder for the role) and Dracula (Lugosi) meet a final enough end for which none of the other films in the series could reach.

The only way the film could have been any better was if Karloff had played the Monster, but that was probably too much to hope far. That we got Lugosi back in the role that made him immortal is more than enough to recommend it. Now that I think about it, there really isn’t anything to not recommend the film. If the slightly stupid title puts you off, please, do get over yourself.

*I’m never going to not vote for Bride of Frankenstein (1935) on that front, but the argument could certainly be made. This film is unassailably in the top five.

**Can you really discount The Naughty Nineties (1945), as it contains the archival (for lack of a better term) version of their performance of “Who’s on first?” 

Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

Director: Charlie Chaplin

Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Martha Raye, William Frawley, Marilyn Nash

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, certainly. I don’t think there’s ever been (nor will there be in the future) a film which possesses a title card which would wind up inspiring so much of my other work. “An Original Story written by CHARLES CHAPLIN (Based on an idea by Orson Welles).” So much passive-aggression in fourteen words. There had to be a whole novel there, right?

Did I Like It: I understand why this film was initially (and let’s face it, now) met with a lot of hostility. It’s such a thoroughly bleak film, both in the ethos of its main character and it s ultimate conclusions about the pitch-black nature of humanity. It’s in such a sharp contrast to The Great Dictator (1940), the only film conceivable which is both about Adolf Hitler, and deeply life affirming. Was Chaplin so horrified by the revelations of just how bad the Nazis were that he had to make another movie reflecting the very worst of humanity to square him with the cosmos?

As much as Dictator feels like an exceptionally adept initial full talkie for Chaplin, this one feels locked down and restricted by the sound equipment. the editing, too, is repetitive. How many times do I need to see the establishing shot of the trucks of the train with the same musical cue? 

And yet, it’s still a fascinating film. Chaplin himself—and students of film—have accepted that Chaplin ceased his famed Little Tramp character with Modern Times (1936), even though the Barber character from Dictator is demonstrably so similar to the Tramp, that I think I know what’s really up. But here’s a thought: Verdoux is the Tramp, too. He changed the mustache later in life, and the terrible crushing reality of the world got to him, and he eventually met his end at the end of a guillotine blade, but in the way he moves and interacts with people I don’t see a new character, and I don’t see Chaplin bringing his personality to the role.

I see the Tramp, more so than I saw him in Limelight (1952). It’s a weird way for the little fellow to go out, but there’s something bold about giving such a beloved character such a depressing end.

Othello (1951)

Director: Orson Welles

Cast: Orson Welles, Micheál Mac Liammóir, Suzanne Cloutier, Robert Coote

Have I Seen it Before: Sure. I’ve been making jokes about Welles miscasting himself as the tragic Moor for years.

Did I Like It: Surprisingly, Welles only directed three Shakespeare feature adaptations for the screen, and it’s unfortunate that this is the weakest of the trilogy. It is not as clever, fully-formed, or expansive in scope as Chimes at Midnight (1965), nor is it as minimalistic and fully necessary energy as his Macbeth (1948).

The film has all the singular Welles cinematic trademarks. The camera never quite does what one might expect it to, characters talk over each other at a time where sound was treated so insanely delicately that to depict people in the way they might actually speak might tax the technology, and the film ultimately feels unfinished.

I don’t mean to introduce that word “unfinished” as a derogatory. Welles’ film career was so thoroughly cobbled together, that I can’t help but keep my eyes glued to one of his movies as it unfurls. There’s always a measure of panic that any of his films—aside from Citizen Kane (1941) and perhaps Touch of Evil (1958)—will complete unravel before the end credits. As films are hardly ever projected via film any more, his may be the only films where that experience can be beheld in all its glory anymore.

And then there’s that casting problem. It cannot be avoided, and I have a hard time believing it was accepted with any degree of widespread enthusiasm at the time of its release. Then, there might have been any number of men of color who could have brought the Moor to vibrant life for Welles’ camera, but instead Welles’ ego (I can’t imagine it was for the sake of the film’s commercial prospect) prevailed and he both directs and stars in the picture. Then, it feels like the wrong actor in the wrong role (he would have been glorious as Iago—here played by Liammóir), and now it’s just another example of where a modern audience has to parse out just exactly where lies the border between swarthy-face and outright blackface, or more importantly whether thats a distinction without a difference.

Fade to Black (2006)

Director: Oliver Parker

Cast: Danny Huston, Diego Luna, Paz Vega, Christopher Walken

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I think film land would forgive me for blanching at imaginary tales featuring a fictional Orson Welles (Huston). One does not want to pollute the reservoir.

Did I Like It:  I’m going to be the wrong audience for this film, right? It’s kind of like a magician trying to do tricks for another magician. This actually does happen in this film, and the notion that Welles would be flummoxed by anyone attempting slight of hand in front of him was something I wouldn’t have done… because it’s ridiculous. This goes double for the moment where he discusses “self-esteem” with another character. I’m not entirely sure anyone ever used the term “self-esteem” before 1975, and I have a real problem with Welles being concerned with it at all in 1947.

On spec, Danny Huston feels like the wrong casting for Orson, and I’m struck by how badly cast he is as the film unfurls. Can anyone—let’s put me aside for a moment—not look at Mr. Huston and think he not only doesn’t look or sound a bit like Welles, but instead is a dead ringer for his father—and Welles contemporary and leading man in The Other Side of the Wind (2018)— John Huston. There are plenty of actors who have portrayed Welles who didn’t quite fit the bill of the man, but none of them are a dead-ringer for another iconoclastic filmmaker of the time.

Also, the notion that he started to get fat only because Rita Hayworth left him? It’s the kind of pat thing that makes an idea like Rosebud the last thing anyone discusses when talking about Citizen Kane (1941).

So, yes. I have some notes.

Let’s try to look at the film objectively, as if I were not me, and the subject matter of this film was any other subject matter. The film is shot with all of the bland panache of a made-for-cable-movie which would be forgotten virtually the instant the next block of programming takes over. The murder mystery story is utterly pedestrian, and I don’t care a bit when the murderer is revealed. Sequences that place Welles in the middle of post-war Italy have a certain verisimilitude, and I think that may be the most damnable faint praise I can offer the film: it works best when Welles and its genre trappings are incidental to the proceedings.

Chimes at Midnight (1965)

Director: Orson Welles

Cast: Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, John Gielgud

Have I Seen it Before: Never. As I type this, this is the last of the films directed by Welles that I’m catching. I know. I’m unforgivably late to a party I myself was largely throwing.

Did I Like It: Welles struggled mightily to bring cinematic vitality to the works of the Bard, sometimes succeeding wildly, (Macbeth (1948)) and sometimes not accomplishing all of his goals as well as the audience might hope (Othello (1951); your mileage may vary).  Here, to play Flastaff—through all his adventures in the Shakespeare Cinematic Universe—was his lifelong ambition. Where as the Moor he was tragically, unavoidably miscast, here it not only seemed as if Welles always wanted to play Shakespeare’s great fool, his entire life may have been orchestrated to give him the opportunity.

The film’s virtues do not stop there. I’ve never thought of Welles as an action director in any sense of the word, but the Battle of Shrewsbury might feel as if it is both too disjointed and goes on too long for the sake of a modern audience, but I would push back against that myopic conclusion. The battle feels real and not some sort of pop culture confection. Film audiences would have likely forgiven Welles for sticking to the stentorian speechmaking, or for succumbing to a bubble gum aesthetic during this sequence, but if there was one thing that Welles ensured he did in his films—even after he was cobbling them together with no resources to speak of—it was to consistently punish those who come to his films with any preconceptions of how a film ought to behave.

Another element that I couldn’t help be struck by: the cinema—at least, the cinema as wielded by Welles—can capture more resolutely the banal tragedy of death better than the stage could ever hope to. His Macbeth and Othello have it as well, but here it is all the more potent. The tale of Falstaff isn’t necessarily meant to be a tragedy, necessarily. But after all the king-making and merry wive-ing is over, he is merely a wooden casket slowly being taken away by horse cart. All people, Welles included*, are heading to such an anticlimactic fate.

*But what this book presupposes is…

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Cast: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, Cybill Shepherd

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. I have the most fleeting of memories of catching it on TCM at some point in the early `00s or late `90s. At the time, it didn’t really connect with me. That was likely because I was living through my own, twisted variation of the story at the time, in so much as I was young and so singularly obsessed with my life as it presented itself at that moment.

Did I Like It: It must have been difficult to be Peter Bogdanovich. He came to filmmaking by way of film history, and chiefly as an acolyte of Orson Welles. Here, he was viewed as a young auteur who may never outpace this early success. Toward the end of his career, he was still talking about Welles, and even committing his anecdotes to film, with The Cat’s Meow (2001). Here, too, he became so enmeshed in McMurtry’s world, that he left his wife for the ingenue he had discovered to play Jacy Farrow, the most calamitous temptress in southern literature since Scarlett O’Hara. He’s always been a filmmaker dictated to by others; a passenger in his own career.

But, as with the discovery of Shepherd, Bogdanovich is swinging for the fences in every aspect of the film. Ever actor is perfectly cast (I hesitate to single any particular performer out for attention, but I will say that when I read that Cloris Leachman won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, I may have visibly nodded, even though no one was in the room at the time) The cinematography is stark, wielding the stark contrasts of black and white photography far more clearly than any color photography could ever hope to… It all brings to mind one other, young filmmaker who was able t ogive everything to a film so early in their career.

Even now, I can’t help but compare him to Orson Welles. It must have been hard to be Peter Bogdanovich.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Director: John Landis

Cast: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: I hesitate to start a review focusing on elements ancillary to the film in question, but on the other hand, the impulse has never stopped me, so: 

John Landis is an asshole.

He raised (or, I suppose, failed to raise, and only really succeeded in over-validating) an unrepentant sexual assaulter. He killed three people*. And if you happen to have seen the recent episode of The Movies That Made Us, focusing on Coming to America (1988), he absolutely has a ridiculously inflated view of himself** for someone who hasn’t made a demonstrably watchable film in over thirty years.

So, where does that leave this film? Celebrated as a great of the genre, I am going to—with the above context certainly making an argument that my criticism may be coming from a certain perspective—push back on that narrative.

This film is one exquisite werewolf transition, surrounded by an hour and a half of a movie that barely registers. The travel story is pedestrian. The relationship between David (Naughton) and Alex (Agutter) is preposterous from the moment they first see each other straight through to its tragic end. It isn’t funny. It isn’t scary. If Landis doesn’t know what it is, I’m not particularly inclined to help him find out.

And that werewolf transition? Entirely the work of Rick Baker, who deserves all the plaudits. Forget John Landis. For that matter, feel free to only enjoy clips of the film. Your life will be better for it.

*I probably ought to mention that he was found innocent of any criminal responsibility for the Twilight Zone (1983), but any reading of the details of that incident paint a fairly clear picture that he created the atmosphere where safety took a back seat to getting the shot done.

**He refused to identify who he was during his interview, after which the makers of the series helpfully introduced a supercut of other directors over the course of the series helpfully introducing themselves, many of them far better filmmakers, happily introducing themselves in deference to the form.

Filming Othello (1978)

Director: Orson Welles

Cast: Orson Welles, Micheál Mac Liammóir, Hilton Edwards

Have I Seen it Before: Never. It’s only ever been in any kind of wide release for home video since 2017, long after I had started writing The Devil Lives in Beverly Hills, Orson Welles of Mars or even The Once and Future Orson Welles. I wish I had been able to take it in long long ago.

Did I Like It: My opinion of Welles’ Othello (1951) was, at best, slightly muted (Welles miscast himself, forcing the film to land at the hind end of his Shakespeare features). However, I had a great degree of excitement for this film—produced for West German television and the last feature-length film directed by Welles which he fully completed in his lifetime, it belongs squarely in the realm of his later work. It is cobbled together from material and resources he already had sitting around the house, and thus is footage of a lunch conversation he had with some of the cast members, and footage of him at his moviola. 

And I. Am. Here. For it.

Whenever I am writing the fictional Orson Welles, there’s never less than an ounce of anxiety that I wasn’t getting his voice (or, more honestly, his unique syntax) quite correct. But that’s as it should be. My Orson Welles is a fictional creation, pieces of what is knowable about the man coupled with chunks of pulp heroes thrown in to fill in the gaps. It’s a singular and unusual pleasure just to spend time with the man as he talks quite honestly (strengths along with missed opportunities) about one of his films. We may not get any salacious gossip or a how-to diagram to make his films, but a perfect snapshot of his feelings about the larger portion of his work (Citizen Kane (1941) is not mentioned once in the 84 minute runtime), and with just a hint of his hopes for the future. He never stopped thinking that his next film would be the one to finally surpass Kane and if nothing else, that one characteristic is what drew me to the man as a subject all those years ago.

Ed Wood (1994)

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette

Have I Seen it Before: Big time.

Did I Like It: If you’ve known me for any length of time, you’ve probably heard about my affinity for Tim Burton’s likely most famous film, Batman (1989). I’ve owned it in five different formats, and have probably watched it more than any other film in history…

But it isn’t my favorite Tim Burton film. Not by a long shot.

The story of Edward D. Wood, Jr. isn’t a very nice story. A man with not a lot of talent doesn’t let that stop him, he proceeds to make movies despite that lack of talent, and the pursuit of those dreams did not bring him fortune, or glory, or even some mild sense of fulfillment. They only exacerbated his alcoholism and left him to die in squalor.

But the film stops before any of the truly tragic realities of Wood’s life can creep into the frame (indeed, they are mentioned only in codas before the end credits). It is a story about hope springing eternal against all odds (and even reality). It’s uplifting, and it’s about friendship at its core. Johnny Depp is never more reserved (or, for that matter, better) than he is in the title role, and Landau’s well-deserved Oscar for his turn as an at-the-end-of-his-rope Bela Lugosi makes this Burton’s strangest and most personal film, when it really should lay claim to neither.

I’m not even all that weirded out that for one of the few times (the others being, naturally Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) and oddly, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)) when Danny Elfman is not orchestrating the score for a Burton film. I mean, I’m a little weirded out, just not a lot.

Also, with the one two punch of Vincent D’Onofrio’s face and Maurice LaMarche’s voice, this film contains the most believable, fictional portrayal of Orson Welles on film.

That doesn’t just count for something; it counts for a great deal.

Don Quixote (1992)

Director: Orson Welles

Cast: Francisco Reiguera, Akim Tamiroff, Patty McCormack, Orson Welles

Have I Seen it Before: Oddly enough, yes. While I was doing research on The Devil Lives in Beverly Hills, I had tracked down a copy of this cobbling together of Welles’ great unfinished regret, as its prolonged production would be a minor plot point in the novel

Did I Like It: Now, as I am nearing my time with Welles and the publication of The Once and Future Orson Welles, I have come to revisit it again. In this latest book, there’s a scene where, while excavating a crypt hidden beneath the grave of William Shakespeare, they discover preserved archives. There could be anything on those shelves. Foul papers versions of The History of Cardenio or Love’s Labour Won. Those with which Orson travels see the documents for the potential treasure they are. Orson wants the papers to be left alone. If, after he is gone, someone found pieces of something he had been working on—for instance, the original ending to The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)—it was probably unfinished for a reason. They should just leave it alone.

That also comes from my feelings about this film. Welles mislabeled much of his footage for Don Quixote, fearing that someone might one day try to cut it together against his witches. Here, poor quality footage is cobbled together in something that wants to be meta, but merely becomes even more incomplete than it was when it was a hypothetical film. It is less than the sum of its parts. Sections are narrated by Welles, and other sections are narrated by someone trying to sound a little bit like Welles, but didn’t understand that Maurice LaMarche is a person out in the world who has had the market on that locked down for some time. 

This is a film less than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately it will exist to disappoint for all time. Fortunately, we can all still dream about what Welles’ Don Quixote might have truly been.

So, this is all to say, if I leave some work truly unfinished after I go, please, please, just let it be.

The Immortal Story (1968)

Director: Orson Welles

Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, Roger Coggio, Norman Eshley

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Honestly, this one has always felt like a minor work (perhaps owing to its runtime?) and flew resolutely below my radar.

Did I Like It: I immediately made some assumptions that this would be firmly in that pantheon of latter-day Welles films (along the lines of both F for Fake (1973) and The Other Side of the Wind (2018)) where it must have been made with such a guerrilla mentality that they almost appear cobbled together via 16mm and 8mm film stock, even home video. As his film career well and truly wore out, Welles was cobbling together films from anything he could reach for.

Thus my reactions to the first few minutes (and largely the rest of the film) were filled with pleasant surprises. The opening shot in Macao (Spain, with some Chinese signs strewn about; Welles lived there and had long since struggled to get a production in the US) was made with such a clean, pristine quality, I was immediately certain that this was a film Orson had left unfinished after his death in 1985, and some well-meaning lunkhead got it into their mind to try and release the finished material in something resembling a completed form (for more on this phenomenon, see my review of the released version of Welles’ Don Quixote (1992)).

But it wasn’t. For most of the runtime (slight thought it might be) I thought the film could have been shot at any time. Certainly, the old-age makeup used on Welles during the production are dim, especially when compared to the efforts which still hold up from Citizen Kane (1941). That could be tied directly to the use of color cinematography, for which Welles never really cared. Why Welles really needed any old-age makeup at that point in his life is also a bit beyond me, though.

For one, brief moment (emphasis on the brief). Welles was able to marshal the meager resources he had at his disposal and make an honest-to-God film. One wonders what the man might have been able conjure had he lived a little longer.