The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972)

Do most people actually have a favorite color?  I know mine seems to change each time the question comes up (which is not often, I grant you).  I mean, I can completely understand having a least favorite color (olive green aka puke, I’m looking at you), but do folks really have a color they absolutely can’t live without?  I suppose they must, since some people feel compelled to festoon their entire living space in one pigment (or slight variations in tone thereof) to the point of obnoxiousness.  I know, because I have worked in houses like that.  I have worked in a house where it was literally floor to ceiling white (we won’t get into additive and subtractive color theories here) with slight gold highlights.  My question would be why?  Why would you spend money decorating your house in a color which will get dirty the instant you breathe on it?  Never mind that it looks like a Kubrickian or Fuestian movie set, it’s completely impractical to me.  Between you, me, and the wall, I think this type of behavior reeks of obsessive-compulsive disorder.  Granted, it’s not as harmful as skinning people, because everyone is only beautiful on the inside or running around in a red cape killing people, but it’s still damned odd, to my point of view.  You don’t have to agree.  But you know you do, right?

Kitty Wildenbrück is a young, pleasant girl who likes to play with her red-dress-wearing dolly.  Her precocious sister Evelyn enjoys tormenting her sibling, and steals said toy.  Intruding on Grandfather Tobias’s (Rudolf Schündler) study, the sisters scream at each other until Evelyn is mesmerized by a rather gruesome painting on the wall.  Suddenly, the diminutive brunette is seized with an uncontrollable rage, and she proceeds to stab the doll to pieces.  Naturally, this is a good time for Tobias to tell the daughters about the family curse, wherein the Black Queen kills the Red Queen, because she didn’t want to share her man.  The Red Queen later returns from the grave and proceeds to kill six people (wait for it…), with the Black Queen being the final one (…and there’s the seven).  This curse rears its head every hundred years and is due to occur again in about fourteen more.  Leap forward fourteen years, and the adult Kitty (Barbara Bouchet) is now a photographer with a successful German fashion company and boinking the openly adulterous Martin (Ugo Pagliai).  But soon Grandfather Tobias is found dead, and a woman matching Evelyn’s description is seen fleeing the castle (of course, he lives in a castle) wearing a red cape and laughing maniacally.  The Red Queen has claimed her first victim.

Emilio Miraglia’s The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (aka La Dama Rossa Uccide Sette Volte aka The Lady In Red Kills Seven Times aka Cry Of A Prostitute: Love Kills) bears a few non-significant but definitely noticeable similarities to his The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave released the prior year.  Both focus on characters obsessed with someone they believe to be dead.  The deceased are both named Evelyn.  The two films include characters who have been (and probably still should be) locked in an asylum.  They both involve a mystery which is both more and less unbelievable than one would suspect at first glance.  Taken by themselves, there’s nothing all that outstanding about these similarities.  They are all common facets in the Giallo subgenre (excepting the name Evelyn, obviously), and Miraglia certainly knows his way around them.  However, what struck me the most in this film is how the subgenre’s devices are used in a dual capacity.

When we think of duality in film, we expect to be presented with double images as a visual metaphor.  Things like mirrors, reflections, and so forth are typical for this type of motif.  Miraglia doesn’t go that route, though, and I think that’s wise, because it is a practice which can just as easily tip its hand and give away all of the story’s surprises (Gialli being films difficult to second guess to begin with).  Doubles are things which can work better as a theme than as a story element.  It’s all in the user.

The main binary idea behind the film, to my mind, is in a juxtaposition of reality (or cinematic reality, at least) and artifice.  It starts in the very first sequence.  Evelyn steals her sister’s doll, and because of the influence of the painting of the Black Queen stabbing the Red Queen (kind of odd in the grand scheme of the plot, but still…), she starts stabbing the doll with the negligently placed (family?) dagger.  Already the folkloric world has infiltrated the real world.  Tobias believes in a family curse to an absurd degree, and he even allows this belief to govern his life and decisions.  The Red Queen is a story come to life, literally enacting a fantasy which is difficult to put any credence in if we accept that this film is set in the “real” world.  Using montage rather than any clever compositions, the filmmaker creates a dichotomy between verity and fiction.  

Miraglia contrasts the fictive tale of the Red Queen and her exploits against the concrete world of Inspector Toller (Marino Masé) and his quest to find the killer in his jurisdiction.  The scenes involving Toller and the police serve two purposes (duality again).  First, they are exposition to give the audience background information on characters, primarily, but they also serve to give a procedural perspective on the case.  Never mind that the police are as ineffective here as they are in almost every Giallo ever filmed.  Second, they provide a sense of verisimilitude to the goings-on which are ludicrous on their face.  In my opinion, they also serve to kill the film’s pacing (a third, most assuredly unintended, purpose).  In the police scenes, we are in a world of dreary brick walls and hard, flat lighting, just like the world we actually live in.  Contrast this with the scenes involving the Red Queen, which are stylishly lit and choreographed and normally take place away from any semblance of civilization (if you’ll notice, a large portion of these scenes occur in castles, villas, parks, and empty streets).  In some ways, it is problematic to determine which side the filmmaker favors (that’s not to say that he has to favor one over the other).  After all, the plot revolves around murders caused by a character who shouldn’t exist, and we know that there is no way the final explanation can be anything other than mundane.  Yet, like great Gialli, not only is the explanation banausic but it also contains several preposterous aspects, so that even when the last shot disappears from the screen, we’re still left with the struggle between real and imaginary, film and life, presentation and representation.  We decide.

MVT:  The most valuable thing for me is the mystery aspect of the story.  One of the most enjoyable things about Gialli is in trying to play along and unravel the mystery before the other characters do.  It is usually a hopeless pursuit, as there will be so many twists and turns and revelations so far out of left field, you tend to accept them more because of their lunacy rather than in spite of it.

Make Or Break:  The Make is the dream sequence that appears about halfway through the film.  It marries real and unreal in the same shots, summing up the film neatly.  It is also the most stylishly directed portion of the film in my opinion, and puts Miraglia’s skills behind the camera front and center.

Score:  6.75/10

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Episode #214: Ghost Dog Justice

Welcome back to the GGtMC!!!

Sammy has returned from an illness that plagued him last week and Will is back and full of FIRE!! This week we brought long time friend to the show, The Back of Forest Whitaker's Neck, on for some coverage and we have some doozies for ya!!! We covered Steel Justice (1987) starring martin Kove and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) directed by Jim Jarmusch with Forest Whitaker and Henry Silva!!!!

We had a great time discussing these two films with a man we consider blood when it comes to love of cinema!!!

Direct download: Ghost_Justice.mp3

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

Vociemails to 206-666-5207

Adios!!!

METAL

Zero Tolerance (1994)

“Zero Tolerance” has quite a few qualities that I love in an action film; guns and explosions (naturally), wacky villains, it takes place (mostly) in Las Vegas, is set during Christmas and stars Robert Patrick. Never mind that it’s a run-of-the-mill revenge thriller that doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary plot-wise. Jeff Douglas (Robert Patrick) travels to Mexico to apprehend Ray Manta (Titus Welliver), a drug pusher who’s a part of the White Hand, which is not like the Ku Klux Klan (that’s proven by the inclusion of LaFleur (Jeffrey Anderson-Gunter), a Jamaican drug pusher).

Some of Manta’s lackeys commandeer the vehicle he’s traveling in and kill Douglas’ two partners. They’re quickly disposed of by Jeff who amazingly steers the wheel while his dead partner’s foot is lodged on the gas pedal. He’s also able to shoot at the motorcyclists chasing him until he hops out. Naturally, cars catch on fire and they explode. That happens a lot on this film! I can’t think of another action film with this so many cars on fire than “Zero Tolerance”.

Just as it seems Manta has gotten away, he sneaks up on Douglas and puts a gun to his head. Ray needs to transport a shipment to his partner, Helmut Vitch (Mick Fleetwood), in Las Vegas. Since he’s a wanted criminal, the only way he can make it past the border is with an FBI agent. Knowing Jeff wouldn’t oblige simply via a gun to the head, he has his family taken hostage. If he takes him to Las Vegas, they live. If not, they die.

As Jeff asks Ray if they’re still alive throughout, he’s consoled with this statement: “Of course they’re alive! I’m not some sick scumbag!” He is some sick scumbag. Jeff’s family was murdered immediately after he agreed to the assignment. He was set up to die as well, as the limo he traveled in was rigged to explode. For reasons unknown, he hightails it out of the vehicle just in time (though he’s hurled onto another car, then run over by a truck) and saves himself. My guess is he seen the drivers and other passengers slowly escaping and thought something was fishy.

The White Hand thinks he’s dead, he finds out his family is and, after being taken off the case and put on mandatory vacation, takes justice into his own hands. He starts in Las Vegas by storming into Vitch’s casino and shooting him point blank in the skull while playing poker (which was badass). From there, he travels around the States tracking down the rest of the gang. He’s stripped of his badge, but his former boss isn’t having anybody following his tracks. We learn he actually gave Jeff an alias and wants him to kill the White Hand. Once he does, he’ll be taken into custody and be put in the gas chamber.

Megan (Kristen Meadows), being the leader of his fan club, learns of this and follows his trail in order to save him. She understands his anger, as her mother was raped and murdered by a hoodlum who’s living scot-free in Florida, but knows killing him won’t bring her back and will only cause her trouble. This is a thankless role that Meadows handles well. Nobody wants to be the voice of reason in an action film, as most of the audience will be rooting against her (we want to see the bastards get their comeuppance). She does her best to not only convince Jeff why this is wrong, but also the audience. I’m not saying it worked, but she tried.

From that plot description, you can probably guess where this film is going. You can probably send me a message detailing the plot points. While watching the film, you don’t really care about that. It’s a standard revenge thriller and you’re happy that it is. You want the comfort of familiarity. You’re just hoping you get many scenes of Robert Patrick being a badass and mowing down drug pushers. You get a lot of that and will be thoroughly pleased by it!

MVT: Joseph Merhi’s direction. While he’s so-so working off the dialogue scenes (from the script written by Joe Hart), he handles the action phenomenally! It’s not groundbreaking stuff, but it’s highly entertaining!

Make or Break: The scene where Douglas shoots Vitch point blank at a casino in front of anybody. Not only was this badass, it showed that Jeff had lost all sense of right and wrong and wasn’t going to be doing everything smoothly. Sure, he’ll be a one-man wrecking crew, but not a smooth one.

Final Score: 7/10

Episode #213: Deadly Victim

Welcome to another glorious episode of the GGtMC!!!

This wee we bring you coverage from all over the globe, Sammy was out sick and we had to go to the bench for some help this week. We brought in Jake McLargeHuge from Podcast Without Honor or Humanity, Death Rattle Aaron (THE MAN) and CD-R from way out on the west coast of Canada!!!

The boys reviewed Deadly Memories AKA Body Shop (2002) directed by Donald Farmer and starring Robert Z'Dar and William Smith and The Victim (1982) directed by Sammo Hung.

Direct download: Deadly_Victim.mp3

Thanks for everybody that helped get the show out this week!!!

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

Voicemails to 206-666-5207

Adios!!!

Sands Of The Kalahari (1965)

The first time I went on an airplane, I was not scared.  I was flying to visit my uncle in New Hampshire, and I was probably about thirteen or fourteen years old.  I had no butterflies in my stomach.  I had no trepidation about looking out the window at the ground so many miles beneath my feet.  As a matter of fact, I kind of liked flying.  Unfortunately, my feelings are not the same today.  I have been on more flights than I would care to count which have flown through hellacious turbulence (the actual number is probably far less than ten, but I feel that’s more than enough, don’t you?).  I have been on flights where it felt like we were coming down for our landing at a (shall we say?) not-so-great angle.  I’m sure that when you’re piloting a flight like that, you have a large degree of control, and the danger is as minimized as it can be.  That said, I am an inveterate misanthrope and distrustful of most people, so my faith in airline pilots is about the same as the distance I can throw them (did I mention I have a bad back?).  I realize that the odds of being involved in a fatal airplane accident is about one in a million, but more often than not, I feel more like the one than the million, especially mid-flight when it feels like the large metal coffin you’re gliding through the air in (as well as your bowels) are about to make fast friends with Mother Earth.  Now, just add in a swarm of locusts, and you have Cy Endfield’s Sands Of The Kalahari, a film which has done nothing to alleviate my phobias about aviation, whatsoever.   

When their flight to Johannesburg, South Africa is delayed, a small group of passengers, including Grace Munkton (Susannah York), Mike Bain (Stanley Baker), Mr. Grimmelman (Harry Andrews), and Dr. Bondrachai (Theodore Bikel) find a small cargo plane willing to take them that evening for a nominal fee.  Piloted by the jovial-but-caddish Sturdevan (Nigel Davenport), the plane takes off with one additional passenger, great white hunter Brian O’Brien (Stuart Whitman).  Running afoul of the previously mentioned winged insects, the plane goes down in the middle of the (you guessed it) Kalahari Desert, and the survivors are faced with two choices: live or die.

Simply put, this film is in the Survival subgenre, yet what’s interesting in this one is the setting.  It’s not so much that it’s set in the desert (there are scads of movies about characters stranded in a desert), but what this particular desert says about the story.  The film came out at a time when apartheid was still national policy in South Africa and only two years after Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for his anti-apartheid efforts.  However, the rest of the world was not really on board with South Africa’s practices at this point, even though the United States had only just passed their own anti-discriminatory Civil Rights Act in 1964.  The film very subtly addresses the idea of segregation within its first few minutes.  As Grace makes her way along the airfield, there are bunches of African kids hanging on the fence, calling out and gesticulating.  It’s not that they are portrayed as particularly dangerous but more as full of life and energy, and they almost seem to be taunting the white people who pass them by, the fence the only thing keeping the whites safe (in their own minds, at least) for now.  Upon entering the airport terminal, there is almost total silence.  It is unnatural, this quiet, but it also serves to describe the differences of the racial divide.  The whites inside the terminal are cold and lifeless.  Here they are guarded and distinctly separate from the rest of the world outside the door.  In a sense, then, it can be argued that the locusts which take down the plane and the travails that follow are a sort of revenge on the people who have partaken in and enabled the racism which has divided the nation by the very land itself.

This sort of story set-up will typically lend itself to a microcosm cast, a sampling of different types representing different sections of society and watching how they interact under great stress.  Not so much with Sands Of The Kalahari.  Aside from the affable Grimmelman and the timid Bondrachai, the characters are rather unlikable.  Sturdevan is a misogynist pig and a borderline rapist.  Bain is a self-pitying drunk with a bad leg (making him an even more flawed and incomplete man who could never be a suitor for Grace’s affections).  Speaking of Grace, she starts off as a tease but quickly becomes an opportunist giving herself over sexually to O’Brien, because he is the most traditionally masculine and capable of keeping her alive.  O’Brien is a bloodthirsty paranoiac who is only looking out for number one (and not really caring if he steps in number two).  Even without any redeeming values among them to make them sympathetic, there should still be something there to keep the audience following their tale.  Unfortunately, they all seem to act out of character at a moment’s notice, seemingly in attempts to garner said sympathy, but these changes felt forced and hollow to me.  I would guess this has to do with the film being an adaptation of a novel (by William Mulvihill), so the episodic feel (which should help us see the characters as more rounded individuals) simply leaves one with a rather uneven impression.  Oddly, this also appears to reinforce my theory that South Africa wants to have its vengeance on these people.  Making them jerks just makes it easier for the audience to want it done.

We expect this type of ordeal to be either transformative or truthful.  That is, we expect the characters to either become different people from how they started or to show who they truly are behind any façade they may wear.  I would actually argue that it is both transformative and truthful.  The trials and tribulations set before a character are going to change them, even if it is only for the duration of their misfortunes.  And since character is shown by the actions one takes under pressure, we are seeing these people for who they really are.  Ergo, the transformation is in the stripping away of the fronts people put on in polite society and showing in public who they are behind closed doors.  That the characters in this film are not really worthy of the redemption we would normally afford someone who has undergone a trial by fire is a bit of a letdown.  But then again, the filmmakers only seem to be interested in judging (and punishing) one of them in particular, and since no standard of conduct is laid down or enforced in the diegetic world, how can any of these characters be either damned or praised, since the film itself doesn’t want to do it?  This non-judgment doesn’t make them any more appealing, though, and I personally wouldn’t want to spend five minutes with the majority of them outside of this movie.  But then, that’s my prerogative, isn’t it?    

MVT:  Endfield’s direction is clean and clear, and along with Director of Photography Erwin Hillier, he has a fantastic grasp of widescreen cinema.  Every inch of the screen is used to amazing effect, and the film is gorgeous from start to finish.

Make Or Break:  The Make is the scene when O’Brien is down in a hole and desperately flinging himself at the sheer walls in a vain attempt to free himself.  As he clambers around, he babbles incessantly, and his character is finally stripped bare.  It’s a great moment and only beats out the final scene for me, because it was the point at which I decided I like this film.

Score:  6.75/10

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Airborne (1998)

Last week, I reviewed a Michael Rooker action film (“Back to Back”). Feeling like continuing the trend of unlikely action heroes, I decided to review “Airborne” (not the rollerblading film) this week. And there’s only one reason it ever popped into my radar; Steve Guttenberg! That’s right, this is a direct-to-video action flick starring THE GOOT as the hero and Sean Bean as the villain. What’s not to love?

A lot, apparently. Once you get past the allure of Steve Guttenberg as the lead in an action film, you begin to notice the flimsy script. Julian Grant & Tony Johnston took the script to a generic action film and stripped it of any interest. No quirky dialogue, no character development, no interesting villain, no solid storyline and, worst of all, no exciting action sequences. The only scene that jolted my senses was the finale and that’s only because the image of Steve Guttenberg chasing a plane with a limousine and hopping onto the wing is hysterical!

Despite being the reason of interest, Steve Guttenberg is severely miscast as Bill McNeil, the weapons expert in the Mach 1 black ops team. His partners are Sara Gemmel (Torri Higginson), a hand-to-hand combat expert and Romeo Cortez (Phillip Akin), an explosives expert. At least I think that’s what he was an expert on. Spoiler alert; he dies early on. Somebody has to be fodder for the villain and give our heroes even more of a reason to fight.

That villain being Dave Toombs (Sean Bean), a random person who appears briefly to cause havoc for seemingly no reason. I’m sure an explanation was given, but the film put me in a catatonic state early on. The only times I was revived was when THE GOOT would sport a ridiculous attire. The first time we see him is in this crazy jumpsuit with a helmet that resembles Judge Dredd’s if he were on a five dollar budget. Later, he sports a members only jacket and a pair of sunglasses that scream douche bag. THE GOOT’s fashion sense knows no bounds.

It doesn’t really matter what Toombs’ objective was with the canister full of a deadly virus. I guess I should explain that more. Mach 1 was sent to retrieve a canister containing a deadly virus that, if memory serves correctly, could wipe out an entire state with one shot. It heavily resembles the game Kerplunk. It’s not nearly as fun or thrilling.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Toombs’ objective being fruitless. As it turns out, there’s a mole in the agency. Bob Murdoch (Kim Coates) is head of the investigation and believes it’s McNeil. McNeil thinks it’s Murdoch. I think it’s the 1989 Denver Broncos. Nobody honestly cares. Especially Guttenberg, who sleepwalks through his performance and appears to want to be anywhere else. I’m sure the lousy twist at the end solidified that feeling.

There’s not much more to say about “Airborne”. It’s as streamlined as a film can be and doesn’t deliver on the goods. None of the action, outside of the finale, is staged well and the actors all seem to want to pick up a paycheck and forget this experience ever happened. This may be why Sean Bean only appears briefly, despite being the main villain. The only reason to watch this is for the surreal experience of watching Steve Guttenberg in an action film. Other than that, it’s best you avoid this!

MVT: I guess Steve Guttenberg. He puts on one of the worst performances of his career, but at least rocks some bitching attire. That’s worthwhile enough.

Make or Break: Can I say the entire film up until the finale? I don’t care if I can or not! The entire film up until the finale is the break.

Final Score: 3/10

The Unseen (1980)

I don’t really get sick.  Oh, I get a nice head cold once or twice a year, and I have hay fever that would debilitate a lesser man, but it’s rare for me to contract something akin to the flu (and bear in mind, I’m in and out of multiple people’s houses everyday in the course of my job).  I don’t chalk this up to having an iron constitution or anything of the sort.  As a matter of fact, I’d probably just call it dumb luck.  However, when I do get the flu, I get it bad.  I don’t just get a fever, headache, and nausea.  I get a high fever, migraines, and a stomach so twisted it’s nothing short of crippling.  Often, this also leads to fever dreams which, for as bizarre and interesting as they are, I could frankly do without on the whole.  What I’m getting at is even at my worst, even when I’m vomiting so much and so hard that it feels like the only thing I have left to bring up is my own anus (if it were someone else’s, I’d really be worried), I have never coughed during the act.  This is one of those cinema tropes which has always bugged me, that people will spit up a bit and then erupt in a coughing jag that would make a “lunger” green with envy.  I get that it’s called “acting,” but to my mind, this is the kind of thing that’s simply not true to life.  Even in Horror movies.

Television reporter Jennifer Fast (Barbara Bach) walks out (ironically enough) on beau Tony (Doug Barr, who you may recall as Howie Munson on TV’s The Fall Guy), who has recently undergone knee surgery.  Traveling with sister Karen (Karen Lamm) and assistant Vicki (Lois Young) to the hamlet of Solvang (an anagram for Vanglos, in case you were wondering), the three find the local hotel completely booked up.  Coming upon the Union Hotel and its not-at-all-creepy proprietor Ernest (Sydney Lassick) they ask for a room, but are informed that it’s just a museum.  However, he can let them stay at his house, where fragile wife Virginia (Lelia Goldoni) takes care of things.  But the horrors to come are still (wait for it) unseen.

If my synopsis for Danny Steinmann’s (director of the Linda Blair vehicle Savage Streets, here credited as Peter Foleg) The Unseen seems a bit slight and not all that scary, that’s because the film is a bit slight and not all that scary.  It has all the elements for a Horror film, and it puts them mostly in the right order.  Nonetheless, the filmmakers don’t seem to want to focus on the people ostensibly set up as the heroines of the piece.  If anything, this is more the story of the twisted Keller family, and had they played up the skeezy, gothic elements associated with them, this could very well have been a decent little Psychodrama.  Instead, they tried to force a standard Slasher structure onto the film, and I feel that it suffers greatly as a result.  It also doesn’t help that the acting seesaws between wooden and manic (with Lassick earning the coveted BEM Award for overdoing it this time out).  Sure, the viewers’ fingernails will dig rivulets into their arm rests, but it’s strictly a reaction to the thespian skills on display and the film’s lumbering plot, not due to any tension constructed by Steinmann and company.

It’s impossible to discuss this film in any detail without some form of SPOILERS, although it could also be argued that this is an unspoilable film, since one of the big twists (out of two) is only a twist in its appearance and has probably been discussed more than Rosebud (okay, not really).  Ready?  Here we go.  So, former Flounder Stephen Furst plays Junior Keller (aka the titular Unseen), the large mongoloid offspring of Ernest and Virginia who have kept him locked in the basement, assumedly since he could walk (and not in the attic where this sort of familial black eye is normally secreted away).  He is the murderer of two of the female characters, but it is Ernest who is the true villain of this flick, and we get that simply upon first sight.  Why else would you cast Lassick, unless you were looking for an unctuous yet somewhat effete character that is instantly untrustworthy and unlikable?  Regardless, it is Ernest’s relationship with not only Junior but also Virginia which underpins the major themes in the movie.  That the filmmakers tried to have these same themes mirrored by Jennifer and her relationship with Tony is admirable but also ineffective (I can only assume they couldn’t afford Bach’s salary to keep her onscreen longer).

The first of the major themes is one of children and parents, specifically mothers.  Virginia is a mother in a very traditional sense.  She stays at home and takes care of the house and cooks and cleans.  She is also abused mentally and physically.  Jennifer, by contrast, is an independent woman and doesn’t want a child at this point in her career.  She has repressed her mothering instinct (though it can just as easily be argued that she has none as portrayed in Bach’s icy performance), and this is conveyed in the first scenes of the film.  Jennifer walks out on Tony as he struggles to lift weights with his repaired knees (and Steinmann’s insistence on showing a closeup of his scar drives home the point that Tony is an incomplete man and in need of someone who can care for him, though not to the point an infant would).  Naturally then, when Jennifer is confronted with Junior, she must essentially face “the return of the repressed.”  What she has attempted to kill in her own life now threatens that life in a much larger (and terminal) fashion.  What’s interesting (or at least befuddling) is that we are given no indication as to how any of this will affect her life in the future.  We see the actions that she takes, but it is difficult to believe that her ordeals will strengthen her maternal impulses and change her mind about having a child of her own.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had her tubes tied after the film fades out.  Again, the film’s focus is rooted in the Kellers (not the outsiders), and it is how Virginia and Ernest act which depicts any character growth.

The second theme I’d like to touch on deals with forgetting and burying the past (which can also be read as guilt).  Here, we should be paying attention to Jennifer and Tony in this regard, but pretty much everything which the filmmakers have to say about the two is put out in the first scene and then all but hung out to dry.  No, it is the Kellers who encompass this theme almost in its entirety.  Virginia has been scarred by the past actions which have formed her present situation.  Junior is a living embodiment of the malignant past which birthed him (though he acts merely within his severe limitations and without malice).  Ernest, who is the catalyst for everything bad in the Kellers’ lives, is himself a victim of the past.  Yet in the past, when Ernest acted out to escape from the cycle of abuse which defined his young life, he only made things worse and progressed (some would argue regressed) from there, thus further perpetuating the cycle.  He owns a hotel which was turned into a museum, a place and livelihood literally trapped in the past.  To be fair, there is a certain richness in this material.  The filmmakers just didn’t dig into it past a surface level, and consequently The Unseen is a film which should resonate but ultimately doesn’t.

MVT:  Furst’s Junior is the standout of the film.  For the first few minutes he’s onscreen, he is moderately impressive and not a little creepy.  Unfortunately, when he starts doing things which are a bit on the ridiculous side (in Furst’s defense, a preoperational child would very likely behave in the same fashion), any sense of unease quickly turns to comedy.  It’s a shame, really.

Make Or Break:  The Break is the scene where Ernest gets drunk and has a conversation with a family member.  Not only is it leaden with hamfisted exposition, but it also gives us some truly overwrought acting which just crushes any expectations you might have for the film’s remainder.

Score:  5/10

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Episode #212: They Shoot Horses...Don't They?

Welcome to a special cross promotion with the Feminine Critique podcast!!!

This week we joined forces to bring you coverage on two different feeds. On this feed you get coverage of They Shoot Horses...Don't They? (1969) directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin and Gig Young. 

On the Feminine Critique feed you get coverage of the second part. or first part depending on who you listen to first, of our coverage of Dark of the Sun (1968) directed by Jack Cardiff and starring Rod Taylor and Jim Brown.

We hope you enjoy this little venture and get out and support great podcasts like The Feminine Critique!!!

Direct download: They_Shoot_Horses_Dont_They.mp3

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

Voicemails to 206-666-5207

Adios!!!