My First Movie Blogathon - Pinocchio and Aladdin

Welcome to the second day of the My First Movie Blogathon hosted at Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear! The Blogathon runs through August 4th so please check out the other entries!

The first movie I saw in theaters was the 1992 re-release of Pinocchio (1940), the second Walt Disney animated film. I was only three years old but still have vague memories of watching it in the theater with my family. The first "new" movie I saw in a theater was Aladdin which came out later that year. This was the first time I watched a movie with just myself and my Dad, a tradition we keep up to this day!

I was three years old around the time I saw these movies. While I don't remember anything about what I thought about Pinocchio at the time, I have seen it several times since and have always enjoyed it. I haven't watched Pinocchio recently but when watching the movie later it always struck about how dark it was. Sure we have the great songs "I've Got No Strings" and the Oscar winner for Best Song "When You Wish upon a Star," but we also have the evil puppet master Stromboli, kids who literally transform into "jackasses" then are sold to work in salt mines, and the giant whale Monstro who swallows Pinocchio!

I have stronger recollections from seeing Aladdin. One thing I specifically remember was laughing when the genie accidentally picks up Sebastian the crab from The Little Mermaid! I had already seen that movie at home before watching Aladdin so the joke was not lost on me. This must have been the first time I had ever encountered both reference jokes and meta humor which probably explains why I love those types of comedy to this day!

While my Dad also picked up on that reference, I noticed that he didn't giggle as much as I did. However, in another part of the movie I noticed that he was laughing hysterically and I didn't get the joke. I wouldn't fully understand it until years later, but my Dad loved the Genie's Jack Nicholson impression! While Aladdin is not unique in having some jokes for kids and other jokes for parents, I enjoy it when family films do this as it truly makes them for all age groups. Movies with humor for people of different ages tend to be even more watchable when you get older as you now get a joke you didn't understand earlier and can view the movie in a different light.

Disney films, such as Pinocchio and Aladdin, often have a high range of emotions and tones. We have ups and downs, funny moments, scary parts, musical numbers, and memorable characters of all types. Disney movies are the first movies a lot of young people watch, and therefore the formation and basis for their future film viewing. This sets up how they look at movies when they get older. Sure the villains will get more complex and there won't always be happy endings, but Disney films are the blueprint for getting used to watching feature films and certainly a big step up from most Saturday morning cartoons. And as was the case for me, Disney films can be a great early theater experience! Even with today's world of giant flat screen TVs and home theaters, nothing beats watching a film in the cinema on the big screen and hearing the reaction of the audience to the movie. This is something I learned at a young age thanks to both Pinocchio and Aladdin.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the rest of the My First Movie Blogathon.
This is the fifth blogathon I've participated in, and hopefully there will be many more to come!

Short Animation Blogathon: Aesop's Fables

This week is the Short Animation Blogathon over at Pussy Goes Grrr. I will be discussing the silent short film series, Aesop's Film Fables.

I first discovered this series while doing research for my Tales from the Archives series of posts, which is currently on hiatus. While helping out at an archives last summer one of my projects was to go through old parish monthly calendars, which are essentially church bulletins, to catalog them so that researchers could find them online. While surveying these calendars I came across some from a church that showed movies in the 1920s and used the calendars to list what movies they were showing and when. The church would often show a short or two along with their feature film, and they apparently loved the Aesop's Fables series and they would show up in the listings quite often.

The Aesop's Fables animated shorts were created by American cartoonist Paul Terry. Terry's first work was on a series of animated shorts starring Farmer Al Falfa (pictured above). These cartoons were produced at John R. Bray Studios. Terry later left Bray Studios but was able to retain the Al Falfa character. In 1920 Terry partnered up with Amadee J. Van Beuren to start "Fables Studios." The first short Terry and Van Beuren produced was "The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs" which was released on May 13th, 1921. Although the early short films in the series were about the actual Aesop's fables, they later dropped that gimmick but kept humorous morals which often had nothing to do with the story. The Aesop's Fables series was extremely popular in the 1920s. Walt Disney even said that Paul Terry was an influence on his own work which is interesting as the two would later have their works be in direct competition with each other.

One Aesop's Fables short that the church showed was called "Small Town Sheriff." The cartoon is pictured above and dates from 1927. This is also the only cartoon from the series shown by the Church (so far, as I still have more calendars to get through in the project) that is on YouTube! You can watch it here.

"Small Town Sheriff" features good ol' Farmer Al Falfa as he deals with animals who have opened a speakeasy, although they sell soda! Keep in mind that this short was made during the Prohibition era. Wacky hijinks ensue such as a cat throwing a bottle at an elephant in a top hat, a fish stealing Al Falfa's car, and a blind pig (another name for a speakeasy was a "blind pig") running around with a barrel strapped to its back! The feline bartender has saved a bottle of booze for Al Falfa, who then drinks it and goes on a surreal journey into space. Al Falfa meets an invisible man on the moon, gets poured out of the Big Dipper, and flies through space in a rowboat being driven by a cat! Of course it turns out that none of this really happens as he was under the influence of alcohol (seems more like LSD to me!). The animals of the town all make fun of him so Al Falfa responds by reminding them him is the sheriff and pulls out his gun and starts firing to scare them away. Overall I think the cartoon holds up pretty well, especially considering its age. There are even some nice meta jokes like the Aesop's Fables film delivery truck and Alfalfa moving a question mark over his head! "Small Town Sheriff" is silly, a lot of fun, and only six minutes long so check it out now!

In 1928 Fables Studios released "Dinner Time," the first cartoon released to the public with a synchronized soundtrack. Unfortunately for Terry and Van Beuren it was overshadowed by the release of Disney's "Steamboat Willie" one month later. Fables Studios closed in 1933 but Paul Terry then started the successful animation studio Terrytoons. The Terrytoons cartoons were distributed by 20th Century Fox. Who is the most famous Terrytoons character you ask? Why it's none other than Mighty Mouse!

Thanks for reading and please check out the other entries in the Short Animation Blogathon!

Juxtaposition Blogathon: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Hands of Orlac

This week is the Juxtaposition Blogathon over at Pussy Goes Grrr. I will be discussing the silent films The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and The Hands of Orlac (1924). Both of these German films were directed by Robert Wiene and star Conrad Veidt. This post will serve as my film topic post for the week.

                              

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is very well known so I'll try to keep it brief before getting to The Hands of Orlac and comparing the two films. Caligari is known for being one of the first films to feature a framing story as well as a twist ending. However, I have read that both the framing story and twist ending were not in the original script and it was changed because the film could be read as a critique of German politics at the time. I won't give spoilers, but I do think the framing story and ending hammer home the themes of the film such as dreams vs. reality, sanity vs. insanity, control (of others and being controlled), and obsession. The ending is still up to some interpretation thanks to the cryptic last line made by the doctor. Caligari is best known for its expressionist sets. The set design is still pretty fresh and fascinating to watch since we don't see sets and art design like this much anymore, with the main exception being Tim Burton movies.
I saw the TCM version of Caligari which uses music by Timothy Brock. The score was great and fit perfectly with film.

                                   

The Hands of Orlac is about a concert pianist named Paul Orlac who loses his hands in a train accident. However, Paul receives replacement hands from a convicted murder after an experimental surgery. In this sense Orlac could be considered the first body horror film. Paul now has to deal with the loss of his hands, which are directly tied to his identity as a pianist. Paul also has the guilt of now having the hands of a murderer, which causes him to lose his ability to be a master pianist. The film features the motif of hands, even before the accident, such as the love letter Paul writes to his wife where he says he can't wait to touch her hair and feel her body with his hands. There were some great scenes such as the knife hidden inside piano (combining the tool of a pianist with the tool of a murderer). We also see Paul discovering his wedding ring no longer fits his new hand and that his hand writing is now different, furthering his perceived loss of identity.

                           

The TCM version uses music by Paul Mercer. The unsettling score fit the film well although it dragged at times. While I really liked Orlac, its pacing was a little too slow and the film was longer than needed to be since the story could have been told in less than 110 minutes.
Orlac has a twist ending which I didn't see coming, but tied together all the loose ends. I still would have liked to have known why Mr. Orlac hated his son Paul, although to be fair that was not the main part of the story.

Juxtaposition time:
Both Caligari and Orlac are silent horror films that share the same director (Robert Weine) and actor Conrad Veidt. Another similarity is that both films have been re-made at least three times each. Caligari was re-made as recently as 2005 as a talking version that made use of a green screen to merge the original backgrounds into the new movie. Orlac was first re-made in 1935 as Mad Love starring Peter Lorre.
Both of these films have twist endings. While Orlac does a better job of wrapping things up, I like how Caligari is a bit more mysterious with its ending. Perhaps the reason for this is that Caligari runs a sleek 71 minutes while Orlac is over 40 minutes longer. However we do get to see a lot more of Veidt in Orlac than in Caligari and while he was great in both he gets to shine as the lead in Orlac.

                          

Caligari is much more well known today than Orlac. Although it is impossible to say why, I think it is because of Caligari's expressionistic sets and more fantastical tone. Orlac is darker than Caligari and even though they are both horror films its more grim and depressing. Orlac is not just darker in tone, but literally as the films plays with shadows and light to set the mood. Caligari makes frequent use of fade ins/outs which Orlac uses sparingly. While both are generally said to be German films, I do want to point out that Orlac was actually an Austrian-German production as it was filmed in Austria. Caligari is in public domain in the US and can be found all over the internet, but there are also several DVD versions. Orlac is also available on DVD by Kino.

                           

The backgrounds and set design for Orlac are dreary and gothic as opposed to the more unrealistic and whimsical sets in Caligari. This brings me to two other points. Even though both films are considered to be from the horror genre, Orlac is more of a dark thriller than straight up horror. Orlac is also usually said to be an Expressionist film. However, the dream sequence where Paul is haunted by the (now dead) murderer is really the only scene that could be considered expressionistic. Everything else is pretty realistic as we have city streets, trains, cars, and hospitals. While I won't get into the debate as to what films can be considered expressionist, and even if it was an actual movement in film, I do think that Orlac often gets put into this category simply because it shares Robert Wiene and Conrad Veidt from Caligari and is a German silent horror film from this era. Below is a picture of German director Robert Wiene.

Thanks for reading and please check out the other entries in the Juxtaposition blogthon! My next post will be the weekly wrap-up on Sunday. See you then!

Juxtaposition Blogathon Announcement (Sept. 12 - 16)

In case you did not see the banner on the right hand side, I will be participating in the Juxtaposition blogathon at Pussy goes Grrr next week! I will be discussing the silent films The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and The Hands of Orlac (1924). Both of these Expressionist films were directed by Robert Wiene and star Conrad Veidt. I haven't seen either film before and have been meaning to see The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for some time now. The Hands of Orlac is the lesser known of the two, but has been re-made a few times.

                          
So far I should be on the same schedule with a film topic post on Thursday and the weekly wrap-up on Sunday. Since I will be doing an in depth post on these two films for the Juxtaposition blogathon I won't be including them in the weekly wrap-up except mentioning that I saw them. I'll try to get the blogathon post up on Monday or Tuesday of next week. I might not get a film topic post up next week, but we'll see what happens.

                                    

Speaking of blogathons, I've finally had a chance to see a couple of films that were discussed in the 50s Monster movies blogathon that I hadn't seen before! Look for my thoughts on those films in this Sunday's weekly wrap-up.

And just to get it out of my system before the Juxtaposition blogathon since I'm an MST3K fan, Manos: The Hands of Orlac!

Monster Mash Blogathon: Forbidden Planet (1956)

This article is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Movie, a local film critic and an acquaintance of my family. Mr. Movie hosted a popular radio show in which he shared his knowledge and love of films through in-depth discussions with his listeners. Forbidden Planet was Mr. Movie's favorite  film of all time, and he claimed to have watched it 178 times. Mr. Movie, whose real name is Steve Friedman, passed away two years ago. Mr. Movie Obit

Welcome to Day 3 of the 50s Monster Movies Blogathon hosted by Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear! So far there have been great posts, with more to come through August 2nd.

                        

Forbidden Planet (1956) is one of the classic science fiction movies, not just of the 1950s, but of all time. But is it a monster movie? I'll get to that in depth later, but the quick answer is yes, although the monster is unconventional and the focus of the film is on exploration. Before I get any further I have to address the film's iconic poster. Although it looks cool and is recognizable by many who haven't even seen the movie, it is also very misleading. Robby the Robot is not the monster of the movie and the scene depicted in the poster never takes place in the film. The closest thing to this that happens is that Robby the Robot carries the doctor for a moment, but it is not out of menace as the poster seems to indicate.

                   

Forbidden Planet was one of the first science fiction films that does not take place on Earth at all. The movies opens with the space ship, United Planets Cruiser C57-D with a hyper-drive and light speed capabilities, arriving at the Planet Altair IV. The mission of the ship's crew is to discover what happened to the colonists sent to the planet 20 years ago. Led by Commander J.J. Adams (played by a young Leslie Nielsen), the crew discovers that the only survivors are Dr. Edward Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his lovely daughter Altaira (Anne Francis). Dr. Morbius insists that the ship leave immediately since he says the planet is dangerous, although he wants to stay there with his daughter. However, the crew has orders to investigate and bring back any survivors  

Once the ship lands, the crew is greeted by Robby the Robot, who speaks English as well as 187 other languages! This makes sense since he was created by Dr. Morbius, a linguist. While it seems strange at first that a philologist would be able to make a robot, it is later revealed that Dr. Morbius was able to create Robby because his mind was enhanced by a machine left behind by the Krell, a now vanished alien civilization that lived on Altair IV 200 centuries ago. Robby the Robot is the most well known part of the movie. Forbidden Planet is Robby's film debut, and he is credited as himself! Although Robby was expensive to create, it was certainly worth it as he isn't merely a prop but a fully developed character. Robby is often used for comic relief even though he never gets what is funny about what he says, which is clearly an influence on C-3PO from Star Wars, Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and countless other fictional automatons of the last 50 years. Robby the Robot has since appeared in many other movies and TV shows such as The Twilight Zone and Lost in Space.

                    

Robby takes the crew to the Morbius home in which we first meet Dr. Morbius and his daughter. Dr. Morbius explains that the colonists encountered some sort of planetary force which caused the deaths of all the colonists except for Morbius, his wife who he claimed later died from natural causes, and his 19 year old daughter who is now experiencing her first human contact outside of her family. Although the crew wonders if Robby the Robot had anything to do with this, we find out early on that he is a red herring as we get a demonstration that he cannot harm people. Robby is essentially bound to Isaac Asimov's three laws of Robotics.

                                 

After we find out about Morbius and the deaths of the colonists, the crew tries to get to the bottom of what really happened. In the mean time several members of the entirely male crew try to get with Morbius' daughter! I can't say I blame them as Anne Francis is absolutely stunning. I have no idea how they got away with the mini dresses Altaira wears throughout the film as they are sexy today and must have been even more provocative back in the 50s.

               

Eventually our crew gets their hormones under control long enough to discover a giant laboratory underneath Morbius' home that belonged once belonged to the Krell. The Krell were a highly advanced alien civilization who inexplicably (at first) died out 200,000 years ago. There are some animals on the planet, and Morbius says the reason behind this is that the Krell visited Earth long ago and returned with specimens. It is never revealed what the Krell looked like and the only hint we get is the triangle shape of their doors. Morbius gives Commander Adams and the ship's doctor (Warren Stevens) the grand tour of the massive Krell power system. There is a Krell computer shown which is the size of a table but described as a powerful computer. It even has a touch screen! Eventually Morbius shows off a piece of Krell equipment which they used to expand their minds, and Morbius admits that he used the machine on himself to increase his intellect. The Krell used this technology in the hopes of using their minds to create anything. As we find out later, it turns out that this ending up being their downfall.

              

Forbidden Planet is only 98 minutes, yet the first death in the movie does not occur until over an hour into the film. Of course there are plenty of hints that there was a monster such as the deaths of the colonists almost twenty years earlier. At first the monster is completely invisible which adds to the suspense. Unlike most monster movies of its time, Forbidden Planet doesn't show you the monster until late in the game which works in its favor. We don't actually see the first death although we are shown the scene leading up to it with the invisible monster entering the ship. The chief gets killed and his death is described as quite grisly since it is said his body was splattered on the ship!

                 

Eventually the monster returns, but this time the crew is more prepared as they set up a strong electric fence, stationary guns, and many armed guards. The electric fence partially reveals the monster and a few members of the crew die fighting the creature until it eventually disappears. This is the only time we really get to see the monster, as it shows up again near the end, but is mostly invisible. When Dr. Morbius enhanced his mind it caused the monsters of his id to come into existence in the physical world. The monster killed the other colonists because Dr. Morbius wanted to stay and they were pressuring him to leave. The monster returns when the crew comes to the planet because Morbius doesn't want to leave and is not pleased with the crew's advances on his daughter. It won't give away the ending, but it is a satisfying conclusion.

                

So is Forbidden Planet a monster movie? The film is science fiction first as it is primarily focused on the mystery of what happened on Altair IV and the exploration of the planet. The monster is a secondary concern. Of course the exploration of the planet leads to the discovery of the monster of the id caused by Dr. Morbius and his usage of the Krell's machines. Unlike most monster movies which tend to be about man vs. nature, the monster in Forbidden Planet is about the struggle of man vs. self. The monster is not made by humans, but by the technology originally created by the Krell which Morbius uses on himself. The monster of Dr. Morbius' id is much like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Forbidden Planet is loosely based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, which is one of the few Shakespeare plays I actually haven't read so I can't really comment on that. There are also several Greek mythological references such as Bellerophon (the name of the colonists ship), and a line that mentions the Gorgon. Adapting elements of Shakespeare and the Greek myths to a science fiction setting is now common place, but this hadn't been done as much when Forbidden Planet first came out.

                

The special effects hold up surprisingly well. To be fair this was an expensive movie for its time, unlike most of its science fiction and monster movie contemporaries which tended to be B-movies. The matte paintings blend in so well that it is hard to tell where the set ends and the painting begins. Forbidden Planet was nominated for an Oscar in the category of best special effects, but lost out to Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments.


                  

Forbidden Planet is interesting in that it is one of the first science fiction films to be heavily influenced by the Sci-Fi literature of the 1930s through 1950s. The concept of all-male space ship crews exploring other planets outside our solar system had been done before, but this is one of the first times it had been filmed. Works such as A.E. Van Vogt's Space Beagle stories and Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles are quite similar. What is important is that Forbidden Planet made a serious, big budget movie out of these ideas at a time when most people didn't give science fiction much respect as a legitimate genre. A lot of detail went into the uniform and equipment of the crew, as well as the design of the spaceship and planet. The crew has a bunch of cool gadgets such as the mini camera/communications device/cell phone shown off by Commander Adams! Oh and don't forget the spiffy laser gun!

                       

It is impossible to understate the influence Forbidden Planet has had on Sci-Fi films and TV shows. The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien and Aliens all owe debt to Forbidden Planet for paving the way to allow thought provoking science fiction adventures to enter the mainstream. Even video games such as Halo and recent movies like Moon and Avatar should all thank Forbidden Planet. Of course Forbidden Planet's most obvious direct influence was on Star Trek as Gene Roddenberry himself had admitted. The similarities are unmistakable in both types of characters (ship's captain, doctor, engineer, etc.) and story. Although the characters don't beam down to the planet, the screenshot below shows you where Star Trek got the idea for the transporter!

                      

Forbidden Planet is groundbreaking for another reason: it features the first entirely electronic music score. This was so ahead of its time that it isn't even credited as a score but as "electronic tonalities." The eerie music is unique and fits in very well with the atmosphere of the space ship and Altair IV.

                   

Forbidden Planet also successful manages to combine a serious Sci-Fi story with humor that is never silly or feels forced, thanks in part to its witty dialogue. The cook (Earl Holliman) provides some of the comic relief as he convinces Robby the Robot to replicate 60 gallons of bourbon for himself and the crew! Other Sci-Fi classics from the 50s such as The Day the Earth Stood Still and The War of The Worlds lacked this tone, which we see all the time in Sci-Fi and adventure movies today.

                

Although stars Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis passed away in Nov. 2010 and Jan. 2011 respectively, several supporting actors such as Earl Holliman, Warren Stevens, Richard Anderson, and Robert Dix are still alive today. Forbidden Planet holds up well over fifty years after its initial release, and will continue to entertain audiences and influence film for years to come.

50's Monster Movies Blogathon

So in case you haven't noticed this awesome banner yet, today is the first day of the 50s' monster movie blogathon hosted by my good friend Nate at Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear! This Saturday, July 30th, I will be posting my entry in the blogathon. My article will be on the 1956 science fiction classic Forbidden Planet, which is also one of my favorite films! After giving an overview of the film I will analyze whether or not it truly is a monster movie and take at look at how influential this movie has been. Come back on Saturday for that post, but in the meantime check out the other great entries in the blogathon! http://forgottenclassicsofyesteryear.blogspot.com/

                    
There will not be a weekly wrap-up this Sunday as I was busier than I expected recently, and am using most of my free time to work on the Forbidden Planet post. I should be back on schedule next week and I am going to announce that next Saturday's post will be Tales from the Archives, Part 2!
While I am on the topic of business, I am going to change this blog's schedule for the fall. I am still going to just have two posts a week at a regularly scheduled time, the weekly wrap-up and the film topic post, I just want have any intermediate reviews of a single film. I'll probably leave the weekly wrap-up on Sundays but will most likely move the film topic post to a day earlier in the week. I'll figure it out once I know what my schedule will be like, but for the mean time everything should be back on track.

Roger Corman Blogathon: Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

I originally wrote this article (now with pictures!) for Nathanael Hood's Roger Corman blogathon June 17-19 2011. Now that I have my own blog I wanted to post it here. Nate will be hosting another blogathon in late July/early August about 50s monster movies. For that blogathon I will be reviewing one of my favorite films, Forbidden Planet! Thanks again Nate for originally hosting this article and for all your advice and encouragement. Without it this blog would never have been possible! Also thanks to all who came here from Nate's blog, I appreciate the support!
Tomorrow I will be posting brief reviews of the first half of movies I have seen so far this summer. On Saturday I will post my first weekly film topic which will be my thoughts on remakes. This Sunday short reviews on the other half of films I have watched this summer will be posted. Then next week I'll jump into one film at a time as I see them. Next Sunday will be my first weekly round-up of the movies I have seen and reviewed in the past week. Without further ado, here is my article on Frankenstein Unbound!

          

Although Frankenstein Unbound was the final film directed by Roger Corman, it just so happened to be the first Corman movie I had ever seen. The first time I had seen it was two summers ago and I had no expectations. I saw that a time travel movie involving Frankenstein and starring John Hurt and Raul Julia was coming on cable soon and with that information alone I knew that I had to watch it! I had heard of Roger Corman before, but at the time I did not really know how influential he was to the film industry, just that he made some B-movies. 



Unlike other many other Corman movies, this one did not launch any careers. John Hurt had already been nominated for two Oscars and Raul Julia was known for his performances in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Romero (1989). That said, this is an early film of Bridget Fonda, although she will most likely always be best known not such much for her acting career, but simply for being the daughter of Henry Fonda and niece of Jane Fonda. 



The aforementioned John Hurt plays Dr. Joe Buchanan. Dr. Buchanan is a scientist of the near future whose experiments have pushed past the limits of nature with unintended but dangerous consequences. While performing experiments to create a powerful weapon with the intention to end war while also not harming the environment, Buchanan and his team of researchers discover that the weapon also has the side effect of creating random rifts in the space time continuum. At first Buchanan is confident that he can find a way around this. One day while driving home from work he encounters some children burying a bike that has “died” because its owner has bought a newer more advanced bicycle. As Dr. Buchanan is musing (“Progresss!”) over this bizarre scene, an unusual storm is brewing. Buchanan is able to get the children to safety even though a warrior on a horse emerges from the storm and almost hits him with a spear! Unfortunately, Buchanan is sucked into the storm and sent across time and space. Eventually he figures out that he is in 1816 Switzerland. Buchanan meets up with some historical figures: the poet Percy and his wife, author Mary Shelley (Bridget Fonda) while he tries to find a way to reverse the time slip and return home. However, Buchanan discovers that a certain Victor Frankenstein (Raul Julia) is living in the nearby Swiss village. Like us, Buchanan always thought that Frankenstein was a work of fiction, but it turns out Mary Shelley’s novel was actually based on true events! As a fellow scientist who has had to deal with his own experiments going horribly wrong despite having the best of intentions, Buchanan tries to help Frankenstein. However, he fails to get Frankenstein to admit that his monster (which is legitimately creepy with a good make-up job) killed a child which leads to the nanny being accused of the murder and later being executed. Buchanan tries to stop Frankenstein and his monster from ending up like the novel, while also attempting to get home and stop the time slips. Despite the title Frankenstein Unbound, the story is always about Buchanan and his struggle to deal with his metaphorical monster (the time slips) which make Frankenstein’s monster powerless in comparison, but an intriguing parallel.



                               The monster:

Buchanan’s interactions with the Swiss in 1816 as a man from 2031 are not only amusing but also interesting as he can do whatever he wants. Unlike the main characters in most other time travel movies, Buchanan does not really need to worry about keeping the timeline intact since the randomness of the time slips has already done significant damage. Therefore the story can follow the character more freely as he explores 1816 while stranded in the past.

If the time slips depicted in this movie were real perhaps Roger Corman would have cast Vincent Price as Dr. Buchanan since, intentionally or not, Hurt seems to be channeling Price in his role. Hurt hams it up, but the end result is pure fun. The best examples of this are the priceless scenes between Dr. Buchanan and his talking car. The car has a sexy female voice and although there is no human avatar for the car, its personality is fully developed with witty dialogue, showing that technology may one day come back to haunt us with snide remarks! When Buchanan is still trying to figure out where and when the time slip has taken him, he exclaims “Jesus H. Christ, where am I?!” to which the car responds “No record of a middle initial for a Jesus Christ, Dr. Buchanan” which Hurt’s character does not find very amusing. The car’s lines such as “Something tells me we are not in New Los Angeles anymore” and “Scientifically speaking, we are out in the sticks” could have been classic Spock phrases on Star Trek. Buchanan humorously treats the car like a real person. When he must leave it to go back to the Swiss village he has been staying at, Buchanan hides the car and tells her to “be a good girl” to which the car responds, “My options are limited!” While one might simply write off the car as comic relief in the vein of C-3PO and R2-D2, or in this case more appropriately KITT from Knight Rider, I argue that its role may be a bit deeper. The car itself is like Frankenstein’s monster as it blurs the line between human and inhuman. The car appears to be sentient but is it alive? Likewise, is the monster simply animate or truly alive?



           

While Roger Corman co-wrote the screenplay for Frankenstein Unbound, it is important to keep in mind that this movie is actually based on a book by British science fiction author Brian Aldiss. Aldiss is a prolific writer, but for better or worse will be best known for writing the short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” which was the basis for the 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. A.I. was originally developed by Stanley Kubrick and finally directed after his death by Steven Spielberg. Corman was no stranger to adapting the works of others (most famously Edgar Allan Poe but also others such as H.P. Lovecraft). While I have not actually read Aldiss’ novel, from what I have read about the novel it appears that Corman has stuck to the original story much closer than his previous adaptations of other works.

There are two fun cameos in this movie that you will want to keep an eye out for. The now deceased Michael Hutchence, lead singer of INXS (“New Sensation,” “What you Need”) puts in a fine cameo as the famous Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley! Also look out for Catherine Corman, Roger Corman’s daughter, who played Justine Moritz, a woman tried and condemned as a witch.

                        Michael Hutchence:
                        Catherine Corman:

Although Frankenstein Unbound has generally been considered to be mediocre at best, I contend that this is a fine B-movie with better acting and cinematography (filming on location in Italy certainly helped) than most of its ilk. The plot is pretty unique, and the only movie I can think of which comes close is the wonderful Nicolas Meyer directed film Time After Time (1979). In this film, Jack the Ripper (David Warner) uses H.G. Wells’ time machine to escape to the future. H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) must stop him from murdering women in 1979 San Francisco! Time After Time is the better of the two movies, but if you liked one I imagine you would also enjoy the other. 



                                      

While I will always have a special place in my heart for Frankenstein Unbound, it is by no means a perfect movie. For example, Buchanan can magically understand everyone in the Swiss village, not just the English-speaking Percy and Mary Shelley. This is not uncommon in science fiction but at least Star Trek mentions the use of universal translators. I feel that some sort of explanation should have been given, or maybe the car could have been somehow used to translate for Buchanan! Perhaps the bigger issue is Buchanan’s persistence in following Dr. Frankenstein. His frequent meetings often feel forced and one wonders why he isn’t spending more time getting it on with the beautiful Mary Shelley instead of getting involved with Victor Frankenstein who he has no real stake in. I know that Buchanan sees some parallels between Frankenstein and himself but I’m not sure if that is enough motivation as to why his character is risking his life to stop Victor. Yes, a few people are being killed by the monster but the damage from the time slip makes these deaths seem miniscule in comparison. Plus since Buchanan discovers that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is actually non-fiction, he knows the murders will end soon with or without his involvement. The movie runs a sleek 82 minutes so perhaps this was answered in the book, an earlier version of the screenplay, or deleted scenes and was cut later. 



Very few, if any, movies are perfect, but it is easy to overlook these flaws since the story is immersive and allows for easy suspension of disbelief. Frankenstein Unbound keeps us entertained as we want to know what Buchanan will do next as well as if Victor Frankenstein and his monster will meet different fates than in the original Frankenstein. It is fitting that Frankenstein Unbound was Corman’s last at the director’s chair. Frankenstein, Buchanan, and Corman all created new things. While Frankenstein’s monster and Buchanan’s time rifts ended poorly, Corman’s monsters continue to entertain and have a lasting positive effect on the film industry.



I gave Frankenstein Unbound a 6/10 on IMDB. I'll explain my scoring system in detail with tomorrow's post. See you then!