For those of us who are avid
readers, there are, as with anything else, books you count as favorites. There are also books that affected you more
than others from when you first got into reading. Aside from Donald Glut’s Classic Movie
Monsters, The entire series of monster books from Crestwood House (which I may or may not have written about
previously on these hallowed pages), and Making
A Monster by Al Taylor and Sue Roy (are you noticing a trend
here?), one of the most enchanting I ever came across was Encyclopedia Of Legendary Creatures by Tom McGowen and, perhaps more importantly, illustrated by Victor Ambrus. The text is as advertised, and it certainly introduced
me to beasts I may never have heard of otherwise. It was the artwork, however, that kept me coming
back for more. Go ahead and look Ambrus up on the interwebs. You’ll see the attraction. In fact, I loved these books so much that I
bought them later in life, and still own them to this day (with the exception
of the Crestwood books, which
command a fairly high price these days from what I’ve seen). But with the plethora of monsters described
in McGowen’s tome, from the
Abominable Snowman to the Vodyanoi, there was sadly no listing for the Duende,
the titular creatures of (the former Mr. Goldie
Hawn) Gus Trikonis’ Dance Of The Dwarfs (aka Jungle Heat aka Night Of The Dwarves).
Deep in the jungles of South
America, a prisoner is pursued by horse-mounted police. As the convict slips into the brush, the
horses refuse to go any further, chucking their riders. The convict’s face is swiftly removed from
his skull by a reptilian claw. End
prologue. Soon thereafter, straitlaced
anthropologist Evelyn Howard (Deborah
Raffin) meets not-so-cute with grizzled pilot (and owner of the Trans-Exec
Helicopter Service) Harry Bediker (Peter
Fonda), whom she has retained to fly her to a field station in the aforementioned
jungle. During the flight, our pair has to
crash land after a bullet fired from the ground hits the hydraulic fluid
line. Once they make off into the jungle
on foot, their situation does not improve.
The most interesting concept to
be found in this film is in the juxtaposition of the Aristocrat/Intellectual
and the Savage. We’ve seen this
innumerable times in the past. You have
Felix Unger and Oscar Madison in The Odd
Couple and David Addison and Maddie Hayes in Moonlighting, to name
just two. Also of note is the fact that
the Aristocrat/Intellectual is typically female/feminine, while the Savage is
typically male/masculine. So, Felix does
all the chores around the apartment, cooks, listens to opera, et cetera, and Maddie
used to hang out in high society circles and was a glamorous celebrity
model. Conversely, Oscar, a sports
writer, can barely find clean clothes in his room, and neither he nor Addison
would likely scoff at the idea of starting their morning by cracking open a
beer. We get the same contrast in Dance Of The Dwarfs. When Evelyn meets Harry, he is shacked up
inside his helicopter (the Peerless Rita) with a hooker. Every chance he gets, Bediker is inebriated
or in the process of becoming inebriated.
His aircraft is rusty and hardly looks like it could lift off, let alone
sustain flight. Harry wears a ratty
Hawaiian shirt, while Evelyn is always dressed in clean clothes. She listens to opera on her walkman, while
Harry is into rock. Despite Harry’s
desire to become “friendly” with her, Evelyn only refers to him as “Mr.
Bediker” (one of the things I remember so strongly from watching this film in
my youth, since it’s repeated so often).
Evelyn shoots up Harry’s liquor bottles because she claims to be saving
him from himself (implying that she knows best for him, since he’s clearly
beneath her socially and morally). Regardless
of how clichéd these traits may be in terms of perceived gender roles, the fact
remains that they are easily recognizable to audiences, which is why they are
used so often. Second, they easily generate
conflict to keep the audience interested in times of saggy pacing. Third, they usually adhere to the adage that
opposites attract, even in terms of friendship (hence, why actual consummation
is unnecessary; the drive is actually in the buildup, not the payoff, which is
more likely than not something of a letdown [especially with regards to
serialized characters] because the tension in the relationship is now gone, or
at the absolute least normalized).
Even more the Savage than Harry
is Esteban (John Amos), a local
“witch doctor” who, according to Harry, is also adept at curing the Clap. Esteban skulks around ominously, his face
painted white, a snake dangling about his neck.
But it is he who connects Evelyn with the Duende, because he lives in
their proverbial backyard. Harry may be
a semi-reluctant expatriate (due to “back taxes and ex-wives”), but he still
dwells relatively close to civilization.
He still needs contact with people (or maybe just hookers) now and
again. He uses modern technology to earn
a meager living. Esteban may trade with
Harry for some goods, but it would take a lot of work for him to fit in
civilized society (and even then, it may not work out). This, of course, leads us to the Duende
themselves. They are the ultimate
Savages because they are completely and utterly inhuman. They could never pass for human in
appearance, and they are animals in their behavior, though they do live in a supposed
tribal structure (perhaps just a pack).
They are an untamed and untamable force of nature, a personification of
the “Darkest Africa” and the like so regularly written about in pulp
fiction. They are irrational and primal. They are the unknown (to quasi-steal a
description from the film).
Consequently, they would be deadly no matter their environment, which is
why the jungle suits them best.
Dance Of The Dwarfs is one of those movies which I want to love
simply because it has one of the best titles anyone could likely dream up (well
I love it, and, incidentally, it is also the title of the Geoffrey Household novel upon which this movie is based, and he
was, by all accounts, no stranger to the pulpier side of writing). But I just can’t. The vast majority of the run time is eaten up
with Evelyn and Howard’s journey into the jungle, and it’s not particularly
exciting. Trikonis pulls out some low budget tricks to shoot some of the
action pieces (like rocking the helicopter to simulate flight and using sound
effects alone for gunfire, though in fairness, there are some juicy gore bits
involving the monsters), but for how staid the rest of the production is, these
pieces mainly serve to be anticlimactic.
The film does pick up in the last thirty minutes or so, and the
creatures are as cool as they could be, all things considered (though they vary
wildly in appearance between the full body suits and the puppets used for
closeups). I just wish there was more
going on in the rest of the film to better balance it out. It’s a mildly enjoyable film, but outside of
the title and the imprinting of “Mr. Bediker” on my brain, I suspect most
people will take little else away from this one.
MVT: Since the monsters are
shown so sparingly and are so inconsistent when they do pop up, I have to give
the trophy to the rapport between Raffin
and Fonda. The two do as good a job as they can with the
material, and they both have a natural charisma that works well onscreen. It takes some of the sting out of the
disappointment the film ultimately generates.
Make Or Break: The Make is
at the start of the third act. Evelyn
makes a discovery, and the film finally starts to pick up some momentum. It loses some of this same steam fairly
rapidly, but it does provide enough of a prod to remind you why you were
watching in the first place.
Score: 6/10
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