DOOMSDAY QUARTET Part Three

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1995: Dir. John Carpenter)

The year was 1995 and writer-director John Carpenter's career was faltering, yet again. Having recently experienced his most dispiriting studio production, the Chevy Chase debacle Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) and experimented with the entertaining but slight Body Bags (1993), a cable TV horror anthology for Showtime, designed in the style of Tales from the Crypt with the director himself in ghoulish make-up as a cadaverous host, Carpenter knew he needed to get back to what his fans and he himself knew were his strengths as a filmmaker, scaring people's socks off. He found his opportunity with a script written by young New Line Cinema studio executive Michael De Luca. If many of Carpenter's previous films had cleverly cherry-picked devices from the seminal fantastique literature of H. P. Lovecraft, he now took the opportunity to re-embrace with his horror roots by making an all-out Lovecraft pastiche. Lovecraft's mythology posited the existence of old gods returning from their trans-dimensional imprisonment to punish humankind for its misdeeds. De Luca's script takes that premise as the underpinning for a story about the disappearance of a Stephen King-like author whose writings not only drive readers insane but are in fact opening a portal to the dimension where Lovecraft's demonic deities await their resurrection. An insurance investigator played with smarmy charm by Sam Neill is the audience's cynical alter-ego, whose sanity slowly disintegrates as he witnesses reality itself being pulled apart. Tapping into the burgeoning millennial anxiety of Western culture at the time, Carpenter created his ultimate meta-film statement about the artistic responsibility of creative people and how their work is often shamelessly exploited despite the harm this does to the artist and public alike. These charismatic profiteers are amusingly parodied in the casting of a righteous Charlton Heston as the publisher who hires Neill, a benignly evil-enabling role which foreshadows Heston's own future as a messianic president of the NRA. Perhaps not unexpectedly In The Mouth of Madness was largely overlooked during its initial release but as with nearly all of Carpenter's work, its value was eventually recognized by critics and fans on DVD and Blu-Ray despite being accompanied by a most tedious technical commentary from Carpenter and his director of photography Gary Kibbe.  It was to be the pinnacle of his work during the Nineties and remains his last great feature film to date.  BLU-RAY 

DOOMSDAY QUARTET Part Two

PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987: Dir. John Carpenter)

I vividly remember when John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness first opened. I was living in Halifax at the time and it was playing at one of the city's seediest cinemas, The Casino situated in the impoverished North End. The area was known to be unsafe and infrequently visited by my friends who insisted on taking a taxi directly to and from the cinema. I even recall hearing about a bar fight across the street where someone was attacked with an axe! Regardless of these warning signs I would not to be swayed from my support for the work of my favourite contemporary horror auteur. It had been four years since filmmaker John Carpenter had been attached to a film where he was not a director for hire. Both Christine (1983) and Starman (1984) had been penance for The Thing, and although they found an audience, the undeserved failure of his follow-up, Big Trouble In Little China, left a bad taste in his mouth for the corporate bureaucracy of Hollywood. To restore his faith in film-making he decided on a personal project that would be independently financed. Carpenter has always acknowledged his affection for British fantasy writer Nigel Kneale. Kneale was a unique talent in the U.K. having created legendary science fiction character Bernard Quatermass for a trilogy of 1950s TV serials later remade for the big screen by Hammer Films, as well as scripting the feature film versions of  playwright John Osborne's seminal kitchen sink dramas Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer. Carpenter had even employed Kneale to dream up an esoteric ancient pagan boogeyman for Halloween III, a collaboration which fell apart after Kneale stubbornly refused to compromise his early draft ideas. Despite this personal rift, Carpenter retained his admiration for Kneale's eerie ouevre so in a concerted effort to return to the artistic freedom of his indie horror roots he chose to make an explicit hommage to Kneale's spine-tingling BBC haunted house tale The Stone Tape. With a minimal budget of 3 million dollars, and a pseudonymously written script by "Martin Quatermass", Carpenter grafted his trademark group under siege template (Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog) to a Lovecraftian doomsday story about a group of scientists investigating the properties of a vessel kept hidden for a millennium by the Catholic Church and said to contain the anti-God. It was to be the most intellectually audacious film of his entire career, incorporating Carpenter's then recent obsession with the science and philosophy of quantum mechanics into a challenging theological horror context. Made at such a low cost the film couldn't help but make money, however one is left with the nagging feeling that the film's quality could have been much improved with more accomplished supporting players. This is no reflection on the peerless casting of Carpenter favourite Donald Pleasence (Halloween), who brings an effortless authority and dignity to his role as a priest courageously confronting his own loss of faith as he seeks to defeat a supernatural being that defies the boundaries between science and religion. This epic battle over evil is atmospherically accompanied by Carpenter's own pulsating electronic musical score, menacingly summoning up an aural anxiety of the apocalypse. It all takes place in a lonely church located within a desolate district of Los Angeles, an area not unlike the poor Halifax neighbourhood that greeted me as I exited the cinema 28 years ago. Still shaken by Carpenter's intense and profound vision, I dared the dangerous journey back home to the "safe" part of town, but the thrill and paranoia of that viewing remains with me to this day. BLU-RAY 

DOOMSDAY QUARTET Part One

THE THING (1982: Dir. John Carpenter)

                                      

Director John Carpenter once made this famous observation about his reputation. "In France I am an auteur, in Germany I am a filmmaker, and in the U.S. I'm a bum." Having been responsible for Halloween (1978), one of the most successful independent films of all-time, followed by the seminal dystopian sci-fi actioner Escape from New York (1981), not to mention the ahead-of-its-time Asian martial arts fantasy spoof  Big Trouble In Little China (1986), Carpenter has had his fair share of career ups and downs. Although his cult of fans seem to follow him wherever he chooses to go, the core of his art rests with his self-coined "apocalyptic trilogy" a trio of features that later formed a quartet with the inclusion of the first of his two television episodes made for the envelope-pushing Showtime series MASTERS OF HORROR. These nihilistic nightmares encapsulate Carpenter's espoused cynicism for humanity's weakness in the face of unknown forces. Exploring the fears that result from loss of identity, loss of faith, loss of personal sanity, and loss of a loved one, these four tales make a ideal introduction to the misanthropic mind of this prophet of doom.

One of Carpenter's earliest influences was director Howard Hawks (Only Angels Have Wings, Rio Bravo), therefore it came as no surprise when he chose to remake the Hawks-produced sci-fi classic The Thing From Another World. Re-titled simply The Thing, Carpenter took full advantage of the latest special effects techniques, and together with screenwriter Bill Lancaster (The Bad News Bears), was able to fully envision the protean nemesis from John W. Campbell's original short story "Who Goes There?". Re-locating the action from the North Pole to an isolated Antarctic research station , Carpenter provocatively returned to Campbell's all-male cast of disparate scientists and civilians in order to explore the group dynamics of those under attack from alien invaders with the power to assume the physical image of any human individual. Identities once taken for granted, now become vital certainties to survival, as cinematographer Dean Cundey's prowling widescreen Panaglide compositions ratchet up the jittery paranoia to almost unbearable levels of tension. Often criticized for its grotesque scenes of biological transformation courtesy of 21 year-old make-up prodigy Rob Bottin, the film remains a bone-chilling exercise in Eighties dread, auguring both the AIDS crisis, and the Cold War sabre-rattling of the Reagan era. With this, his first major studio production, Carpenter confidently demonstrated a skillful maturity that belied his origins as a low budget exploitation filmmaker, however, unlike Universal Pictures' other blockbuster 1982 alien film, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, neither audiences nor critics could warm up to the film's explicit imagery and bleak tone. The Thing, finally gathered a significant following on video where its fervent fans turned it from turkey to triumph within the period of its VHS release and the film's arrival on DVD. Befitting its grassroots cult classic status the disc contained lavish extras including a peerless documentary detailing every aspect of production, deleted stop-motion effects footage, and a rousing commentary by Carpenter and star Kurt Russell, whose infectious camaraderie echoes the fertile partnership of Hawks and his frequent leading man John Wayne. A subsequent Blu-Ray version featured improved picture quality that makes the snowbound scenes glisten with icy clarity but fatally omits some of the vital bonus material. I look forward to a definitive HD special edition in the near future. It would be the ironic crowning achievement for such a hard-won success as John Carpenter's The Thing. BLU-RAY

A CHILLER FROM THE GREAT WHITE NORTH

THE DISAPPEARANCE (1977: Dir. Stuart Cooper)

    

Canadian Cinema was still in its infancy in 1977 when the Liberal Government changed the tax code allowing home-grown film producers to write off all of their cash investment in the first year providing that the project was certified Canadian according to specific content regulations. This decision to encourage film-making in the Great White North led to a surge in co-production that effectively established Canada as an increasingly viable place to make movies. Technical facilities, and crews were finally given the promise of steady employment mainly due to outside investment from counties such as France, the U.K. and the U.SA. The Disappearance was one of these early films to ride the new rails of the so-called "tax shelter"boom in Canada. Adapted by screenwriter Paul (The Man Who Fell To Earth) Mayersberg from the novel Echoes of Celandine by spy author Derek Marlowe (A Dandy in Aspic), it was developed as a British production, with former actor and American expatriate Stuart Cooper attached to direct, and co-star David Hemmings producing. The Rank Organization were to be the principal financiers but when they backed out at the last minute, a partnership was formed with Toronto-based entertainment lawyer and fledgling executive producer Garth Drabinsky. In order for the film to be considered more Canadian, the main character's residence was moved from Britain to Montreal, and New Brunswick native Donald Sutherland, Cooper's former co-star from The Dirty Dozen, was chosen to star after Lee Marvin turned down the lead role of paid assassin Jay Mallory. Sutherland suggested his real-life spouse, Quebec actress Francine Racette to play his on-screen wife Celandine, and together with Toronto born actor Christopher Plummer as the other corner in the love triangle, the film has the distinction of being one of the few of its era to feature three prominently-billed Canadian stars. Dismissed by critics at the time and almost entirely forgotten today, The Disappearance is in an emblematic example of the burgeoning artistic aspirations of Canadian cinematic culture. Thanks to the intellectually jet-setting glamour of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Canada in the Seventies was enjoying a new period of envy in the world just as its neighbour to the south was recovering from the political paranoia and economic uncertainty of the post Nixonian era. Taking advantage of these changing winds Cooper advantageously embraced the Canadian content he was forced to include, resulting in a brooding evocation of a vulnerable yet capable killer, living in the cold climate of Canada, but whose life is still controlled by frosty British bureaucrats from across the ocean. At the time, this was also a subliminal notion for many proud Canucks, whose burgeoning political independence now seemed more than ever diminished by their antiquated British patronage. It is an especially poignant metaphor given what we now know of Trudeau's future plans to introduce the radical idea of repatriating the Canadian constitution. The wintry locale of Montreal's ultra-modern Habitat housing complex overlooking Expo 67's Biosphere on the shores of the St. Lawrence provides the perfect chilly locale for the emotionally distant married life of Mallory and Celandine. They represent Canada's "two solitudes", the French who feel with their hearts and the English who think with their heads. When Celandine suddenly disappears without warning, Mallory is tormented by jealousy but reluctantly accepts an assignment in England that ends up being more personal than he ever expected. Cooper daringly employs a challenging flashback structure to the narrative, while Canadian composer Robert Farnon utilizes themes by Ravel to give warmth and humanity to the otherwise deadly proceedings. Not surprisingly, the American distributors of the picture rejected the Cooper's European art-house editing style thereby reducing the length (and subtlety) of his director's cut by twenty minutes as well as re-scoring it with cheap electronic thriller music. The new Blu-ray from Twilight Time is a revelation compared with any previous releases, as it includes both a standard definition 101 minute director's cut, in addition to a new high definition 91 minute version that preserves most of the film's original moody qualities, particularly the stately elegance of John Alcott's cinematography, as it captures the icy beauty of this subzero story of love and death. BLU-RAY 

THE POWER OF SPECULATION

RESISTANCE (2011: Dir. Amit Gupta)

It defies understanding when nearly five years after its British release, North American audiences are still unable to see a great film. Resistance, co-written and based on the novel by Owen Sheers, is an intense portrait in miniature about an isolated valley in Wales that is occupied in WWII by the German army. This is the genre of alternate history, a speculation based on the premise of a Britain invaded after the failure of D-Day. Sheers, a proud Welshman, masterfully conveys an ambient sense of place and premonitory power with the story of a group of women who awake one morning to find their farmer husbands have mysteriously absconded in the night. The main protagonist is Sarah, played by the ever-compelling Andrea Riseborough, an abandoned woman in personal conflict with the courteous and cultured German officer (Tom Wlaschiha) whose patrol unit controls the valley. Theirs is a relationship symbolizing everything that makes the British a resolute island people and the Germans a ruthless invader. Northumberland-born Riseborough, an actress whose porcelain countenance and fragile frame often conceal the stuff of steely determination, is superbly matched opposite Wlaschiha, an East German actor whose gentle voice and penetrating stare provide a soothing sense of unease. Their scenes, as with those of  the rest of the cast are expertly directed by Amit Gupta, in his astonishingly assured feature directorial debut. Gupta, with a painterly eye, composes scene after scene of haunting imagery, where solitary figures linger amidst the secluded rolling green hills of Wales. Such serenity provides shocking contrast with a violent war better suited to the baneful beaches of Normandy.  It is however the ambiguity of moral choice that is at the heart of Resistance, driven home by the simple poetry of Sheers and Gupta's screenplay. Silences as much as dialogue, communicate the inner life of characters forced to fully confront the banal danger of everyday existence. Having been born on a continent without a history of invasion, one is humbled by this small yet forceful film. An inspiring tale with an unerring courage of its convictions. Blu-ray 

FILM FAILURES I REFUSE TO ABANDON Part Four

THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN (1958: Dir. John Huston)

                                                                                                                                             

The animal rights film is a genre that, much like the cause it espouses, never gets the attention it rightfully deserves.  Rarely does one see the stirring example of filmmakers such as Bill Travers and his wife Virginia McKenna, who parlayed their success as the stars of Born Free (1964) into a passionate crusade against wild animals in captivity through a series of dramas and documentaries that helped to foster empathy and enlightenment for generations of apathetic zoo visitors. With the recent uproar over the sport killing of a famous wild lion in Nigeria, I was reminded of the neglected anti-hunting film, John Huston's The Roots of Heaven. It was producer Daryl F. Zanuck, who purchased the rights to Romain Gary's novel after it won the Prix Goncourt, France's highest literary award and promptly hired Huston to adapt it to the screen. Famous for his reputation of always having things his own way, Zanuck uncharacteristically gave Huston free reign on the project, on the condition that his protegee, French chanteuse Juliette Greco be given the female lead. Greco, whose natural beauty and compelling charisma on camera, proved to be a worthy addition to Huston's eclectic cast of character faces. For his protagonist, Huston had originally wanted handsome headliner and real-life African conservationist William Holden, who proved unavailable. Instead he chose British leading man Trevor Howard, an authoritative and effortless performer who brings a poetic dignity to the heroic idealism of Morel, a zealous and often ridiculed enemy of elephant slaughter. Top billed is Errol Flynn, all too convincing as alcoholic ex-soldier Forsythe. This part mirrors the broken-down lush he played in Zanuck's The Sun Also Rises (1957), as well his own debauched lifestyle that would soon kill him within 18 months of the film's release. Flynn is joined by his Sun co-star Eddie Albert as a ambitious photographer, as well as the oleaginous Orson Welles, a close friend of the former swashbuckler, who used Flynn's yacht in his film The Lady From Shanghai (1948). Cast here in the cameo role of an arrogant American television correspondent, Welles becomes the de facto mouthpiece of director Huston when he refers to the killing of an elephant as a sin, words that Huston himself had uttered when referring to the big game hunting he himself had endorsed while on location in Tanganyika filming The African Queen in 1951. Despite never having personally killed an elephant, some thought Huston was a hypocrite for making a film decrying the African hunt, but his sincerity is ably demonstrated by a deliberately ethical choice to depict only violence done to humans on-screen. His experiences in Africa must have also had an obvious impact on him personally, when after the film he gave up the shooting of wild animals altogether. Photographed on location in French Equatorial Africa, by Huston's frequent cinematographer Ossie Morris (The African Queen, Moulin Rouge), the exotic scenery captured is a stunning Technicolor record of the threatened wildlife from a time when the incursion of tourism, due to the post war boom in transcontinental travel, was just beginning to see the tragic massacre of numerous indigenous species. The Roots of Heaven, a wordy and worthy film, was never meant to be a rip-roaring adventure. It is rather a sober and passionate cry for environmental awareness, at a time when atomic destruction rather than animal extinction, consumed the thoughts of humanity. Huston accepted blame for the film's failure at the office, but he always believed that the story, although a bitter pill for audiences to swallow, still had merit and could be re-made successfully. As with most films in his oeuvre, The Roots of Heaven, depicts the courage of those who dare to challenge a blood-thirsty system, an inspiring theme that we as custodians of a fragile planet would do well to embrace, now more than ever. Blu-ray

THE COMEDY OF CONCEALMENT

THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER (1975: Dir. Blake Edwards)

There are very few in my performer's pantheon who hold the place of Peter Sellers. Although he has been dead for 35 years, to fans like myself his eccentric collection of characters are still living and breathing in their own perfectly preserved worlds of pure mirth. No matter the quality of the film, Sellers was always in top form, exhibiting a seamless schizophrenic personality that left him utterly possessed by the part he was playing. He would often describe his own lack of a distinct persona, and how he saw himself as empty vessel to be filled by the various film roles he had chosen. Consequently, all of his performances have merit, but there are a few classics that rise above the fray to be counted as indelible masterpieces of film comedy. These five roles are the stuff of legend for Sellers addicts. When the names of Fred Kite (I'm All Right Jack), Dr Strangelove (Dr. Strangelove), Hrundi V. Bakshi (The Party), or Chance the Gardener (Being There) are evoked, one can't help but smile with remembrance, but when the character of Inspector Jacques Clouseau is mentioned, all at once are heard the joyful echoes of laughter from an entire generation. For such a legendary comic creation, it is surprising that this oafish officer of the law was almost not portrayed by Sellers at all. Peter Ustinov had originally been cast in the role, before bowing out at the last minute. Sellers was called in as an inspired replacement and the resulting film, The Pink Panther (1963) became Clouseau's smash debut. Envisioned as a supporting player to David Niven's suave jewel thief Sir Charles Litton a.k.a The Phantom, the idiot Inspector's persona didn't really come into full focus until the second and some say best film of the Clouseau series, A Shot in the Dark  (1964). Building on past experience, Sellers now painted in the idiosyncratic details of this arrogantly oblivious bumbler, thus allowing the baroque gags devised by director Blake Edwards to take on a comical complexity, without losing sympathy for the hapless Frenchman. Although Sellers enjoyed a volatile though productive working relationship with Edwards, his increasingly mercurial behaviour and boredom with the character precluded any further Clouseau adventures. As a result, the late Sixties and early Seventies saw Sellers' popularity in near free fall, with one film after another making little or no connection with audiences. So in an eager attempt to regain former glory, he reunited with Edwards to make what is arguably the most important film in the Clouseau franchise. It is hard for today's audiences to remember what The Return of the Pink Panther meant at the the time to Sellers' loyal and hungry fans. Not only did he bring back a beloved character from his illustrious past, but he took the time to further embroider this already inventive caricature. Clouseau (Mark II) now talked in a side-splittingly grotesque accent, mangling his spoonerism-laced dialogue with bizarrely memorable pronunciations. Always eager to get into someone else's clothes, Sellers also indulged his personal propensity for elaborate disguises featuring a rogue's gallery of colourful costumes, grotesque facial hair and ridiculous putty noses. It was a full-time job channeling Sellers' unique creativity, so to provide contrast to all the craziness, Edwards cleverly re-cast the Charles Litton role, eschewing the light comic persona of Niven in favour of the more menacing presence of Christopher Plummer, well paired with a cheerfully vivacious Catherine Schell as Lady Litton. Much-loved supporting players from the previous film also returned, particularly the hilarious Herbert Lom as Clouseau's exasperatedly slow burning boss, and the acrobatic antics of Burt Kwouk as Clouseau's martial-arts practicing manservant, Kato. Credit must also be given to intrepid stunt coordinator Joe Dunne, whose death defying deeds are a visceral example of "going beyond the pain barrier", a slapstick style Blake Edwards learned from Laurel & Hardy director Leo McCarey. Audiences marveled at the outlandish physical feats that were the Clouseau trademark, a challenge that had to be topped for each subsequent film. It made for a potent comedy cocktail eagerly enjoyed by moviegoers around the world, where The Return of the Pink Panther earned back eight times its production costs. With a grand flourish Sellers had resurrected a near moribund career with his biggest hit yet. Capitalizing on this well-earned windfall, Sellers and Edwards immediately went into production with The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), in the opinion of many an even funnier sequel that fell oddly short of Return's stupendous success.  Emboldened, Sellers continued his run of good fortune with a final appearance as Inspector Jacques Clouseau in Blake Edwards' Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), the highest grossing entry yet and my own personal favourite, as it featured some of Sellers' most outrageous masquerades and a ripping finale in Hong Kong. By this time, Sellers' work schedule revolved almost entirely around his most famous character but his fragile ego could no longer share any success with Edwards, the series' artistic co-creator. Before his early death at age 54 of a heart attack, Sellers had intended to make one more Clouseau film, Romance of the Pink Panther, to be directed by former collaborator Clive Donner (What's New Pussycat?). It would have been an unusually intimate setting for the Clouseau character, at last falling in love and perhaps living happily ever after, but alas, it was not to be. Blake Edwards would pay tribute to his troubled former comrade when he resurrected Clouseau one more time for the posthumous Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), using deleted scenes from the previous films. Some thought it desperate and in bad taste, but I personally believed Edwards in his assertion that he had just wanted the public to enjoy every priceless morsel of Clouseau magic. Befitting its cut and paste construction, Trail was a box office disappointment. However, in those treasured scenes when the late Peter Sellers was on screen as cinema's most beloved trench coat-wearing twit, Inspector Jacques Clouseau came alive once again, and for a brief time, one could bask in the healing gales of merriment bestowed upon us by a singular comedic genius.  BLU-RAY