Welcome to a new dynamically-enabled paradigm shift in delivering content-rich online experiences to generate more sticky eyeballs. Yep our host, that great raconteur, humanitarian and patron of the arts, Tony the T, has generously allowed me to do a little Grog Flogging (film blogging) here from time to time - basically about odd little films I think are unjustly overlooked… or bloody overrated. And since blogland has the attention span of a dog just let out of the car after a long drive, I'll try and keep it short and mainly about flicks with lots of sex and violence.
I'll start gently with a well-known cult classic (ie: bloody hard to see and some confusion over the director's intended ending) that’s now finally on DVD - half a century after it was made: "Kiss Me Deadly".
1955. B&W, natch! Script: Albert Isaac Bezzerides. Direction: Robert Aldrich. Cinematography: Ernest Lazlo. Score: Frank De Vol, also feat. Nat King Cole, Franz Schubert and strange hissing noises.
So what's the fuss about? Well, it's the atomic-powered, crazed mutha of a movie that stomped classic film noir into the gutter. Before it, there was there was "The Big Sleep", "The Third Man", "Pickup On South Street", "The Lady from Shanghai", "The Killers" (the 1949 version) and "Criss Cross". But after they spawned their sneering, swaggering bastard child, "Kiss Me Deadly", there was nowhere really left to go but "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" and eventually "Night Of The Living Dead". It was the genre's Gotterdammerung.
Deadly kept all the ingredients of the original Mickey Spillane book. Mysterious damsels in distress, urbanely evil masterminds, nympho gangster molls, glinting drug-laden hypodermics, stone-faced henchmen, cynical wise-cracking cops, hard-boiled but soft-curved blondes with snub-nose .38s and a merry sidekick who dies hard. And bourbon. Lots of bourbon. But then Deadly got really wild.
For starters, our main boy, Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is a completely amoral, sleazy ratbag. He slaps innocuous folks around at the drop of a fedora, his private dick operation is basically a sexual blackmail racket that would make Jake Gitties blanch, he treats his luscious jazz ballet dancing secretary, Velda Wakeman (Maxine Cooper) like shit and he keeps stealing other people's smokes (the whole bloody packet too). However Mike seems be to be raking in the mazuma, even though he's a thieving bastard with the Lucky Strikes. He drives a succession of classic 50s roadsters even shapelier than his women and his "What kind of man reads Playboy?" pad has one of the first answering machines ever seen on screen – all bakelite console and big tape spools.
But what really makes Deadly leap off the screen and slap you around is the utterly bravura filmmaking that delivers a very post-modern (ie: no one gives a shit if it makes sense or not) story. The lighting and camera angles often push noir conventions till they scream for mercy, while even the bit players seem to have stepped out of a stag film parody of the original Twilight Zone. It opens with a metaphorical bang and closes with a literal one. And in between it’s grainy, grimy 50s LA gothic at 120 mph. There's a brainsnapping title sequence (reverse credits, rolling backwards as well, over a car windshield and accompanied by sobbing and panting overlaid on a moody jazzy ballad) followed by an artfully just off-screen torture scene that gives you the willies even now. And that's just in the first few minutes.
And a savage, smirking but increasingly baffled Mike Hammer stalks through this nihilistic, shadow-sodden, off-kilter world, pulling judo moves here, smashing fingers and Caruso records there and puzzling over a clue hidden in a Christina Rossetti love sonnet, but always blind to what's really going until the light's so bright, it burns everything up.
No wonder Lynch, Scorsese, Tarantino, Ellroy, Frank Sin City Miller, and so many others, deftly lifted moves, motifs and riffs from this flick just like Mike Hammer would your cigarettes. See it or take one in the kisser, pal.
GrogFlog's verdict: "Va-Va-Voom! Pretty POW!" 8 out of 10.
Coming soon: 70s sci-fi porn, the young Oliver Reed, arthouse coprophagia, telepathic dogs and wrinkled retainers.
Thanks for the review, I'll make sure I catch KMD.
Also, is "Coming soon" what you hope for when you watch those other movies?
Posted by: SB | 21 July 2005 at 11:47
Coming soon: 70s sci-fi porn..
Oh good - does that mean you are deconstructing Flesh Gordon one of my faves of that genre. Or does Flesh Gordon comprise the entire oeuvre?
Posted by: Francis Xavier Holden | 21 July 2005 at 11:47
Oh, you two! Since when has this blog ever been a forum for rank Doooooble On-ton-draaaa.
Since ever, that's when! Good work.
Perhaps Nabs meant Coming Home: 70s viet-fi porn.
Apropos nudiness, when I saw Coming Home in 1979, it contained a rather graphic sex scene with Jon Voight and Hanoi Jane which I have never seen since. Was it cut? Or maybe I was just mistaken first time round. Very puzzling, either way
And for my tummy, the words "Flesh Gordon" and "oeuvre" sit somewhat oddly. How come oeuvre is not classified as a rude word?
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 July 2005 at 12:22
Yes I must try to catch KMD now too - not only for the post-modern storyline and the sonnet-puzzling, but a glimpse of the vintage answering machine. A bit like the Coffee Plunger in Ipcress?
Posted by: boyntonb | 21 July 2005 at 12:23
Hello there, boyntonb. It's always nice to receive new commenters.
PS: the fillum is very much in the oeuvre (oooooooo, you sexy word, you) of a certain touchy evilly fillum.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 July 2005 at 12:26
Could say b for the B movies but KMD sounds rather A.
btw - Australian Hammer Posters
Posted by: boynton | 21 July 2005 at 12:43
1951 - YOGA AND THE AVERAGE MAN
Documentary on yoga
1950 - YOGA AND YOU
Documentary on yoga
The Horrrrrorrr. The Horrrrrorrr.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 July 2005 at 12:49
Great seeing Cloris Leachman, a Mel Brooks regular, in a small but pivotal role.
Mike Hammer is one great hard-boiled dick.
Posted by: RT | 21 July 2005 at 13:15
Can you believe that Cloris is nearly 80. She was born the same year as the Queen, for Christsakes!
"Frau Blücher?
Neigh.
Great in The Last Picture Show, too.
A young Strother Martin was in it too. Well, youngish. He's one of those dudes who even as a teenager would have looked about 40.
Posted by: Tony.T | 21 July 2005 at 13:22
"Flesh Gordon"? Whaddya think this is? Cineste International? Film Studies Journal?
You want classy flicks, go somewhere else. I'll be flogging stuff that would scare the pants off Flesh Gordon. Oh, too late I see.
Posted by: Nabakov | 21 July 2005 at 14:33
These comments on this piece do not appear in my OPERA. Works ok in FF and IE. dunno what is problem.
FXH
Posted by: fxh | 21 July 2005 at 14:39
Great review. I'll have to hunt this movie down and see it.
I take it, then, that Tarantino lifted the idea for the off-screen torture in Reservoir Dogs from this particular film?
Posted by: carneagles | 21 July 2005 at 16:11
Review almost makes me think that Stacy Keach is not the best Mike Hammer. That can't be right.
Posted by: Russell Allen | 21 July 2005 at 16:35
Young Oliver Reed? You should check out The League of Gentlemen, where he makes a five second appearance in an otherwise surprisingly dark at times film. Jack Hawkins, Dickie Attenborough etc. Bloody good flick.
Posted by: flute | 21 July 2005 at 16:36
"Tarantino lifted the idea for the off-screen torture in Reservoir Dogs from this particular film?"
And more, including a key gimmick for Pulp Fiction.
And Meeker's Hammer would have just flattened Keach's. He's one tough bastard who gets driven off a cliff in a car, coshed, drugged and shot and still keeps coming back.
My local video store has it on DVD now(the DVD version is a nice clear print struck from the negative, complete with the missing ending) so you should be able to get it around the traps here. If not, it's easily ordered online.
Posted by: Nabakov | 21 July 2005 at 17:16
some confusion over the director's intended ending
But was there? Aldrich's own print of the film contained the lost ending, which is how it finally got back into circulation, and the screenplay for the film specified the longer ending. The only confusion, as far as I can see, is over why the ending was chopped up in the first place...
Posted by: James Russell | 21 July 2005 at 19:30
Yer right there Jimmy F about the ending, and perhaps I should have framed my original reference to this issue better. But the fact we're actually having this interchange just underlines what a classic cult flick Deadly is.
There's even whole bloody websites that take it apart frame by frame.
http://members.aol.com/alainsil/noirkmd/noirkmd1.htm
In the case above, I'm with Mike Hammer. Slap 'em around until they make sense.
Posted by: Nabakov | 21 July 2005 at 21:27
FX: What's Opera, Doc?
Ho Ho. Ha Ha. It is to laugh.
On a seriously note, folks, I made some changes yesterday. I took the sidebars out of the Date Archives, The Individual Archives and thus indirectly, out of the comments section. It hasn't made any difference in IE or FF and as I really like the look, I'll keep it that way.
Has your Opera system always worked here, FX? I don't know how taking the sidebars out should affect the comments section.
Posted by: Tony.T | 22 July 2005 at 15:02
Nabs, I just had a look at Robert Aldrich on the IMDB and by crikey he's made a lot of good films.
Kiss Me Deadly
The Big Knife
Attack
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?
Flight of the Phoenix was OK
The Dirty Dozen is OK, too
Ulzana's Raid is one of my favourite westerns
Emperor of the North Pole
The Longest Yard the best version by a mile
Hustle was OK
The Frisco Kid I enjoyed as a youngster, not sure how it stands up
Pity The Choir Boys was a stuff up, I loved the book.
A top body of work.
Posted by: Tony.T | 24 July 2005 at 20:24
I like my ouevres 'over easy' except film noir which cannot be noir enough. Unfortunately I rushed off to The Grifters (Virginia Madsen, Anjelica Huston playing John Cusack's mother) with a person who loathed it and their unhappiness ruined it for me. won't make that mistake again.
Glad Tony finally mentioned Aldrich's Longest Yard which had the most excellent cast and one of my favourite film lines from Burt 'under-rated' Reynolds character when he leans over the jail receptionists (bernadette peters) beehive hair and says "did you ever find a spider in there?" I would not bother with the remake.
Posted by: Brownie | 25 July 2005 at 09:59
There was actually a lame Pommy remake, too, Brownie with soccer thug Vinnie Jones in the main role and a very sick looking David Hemmings as the warden. Bordering on crap, it was. The new Hollywood remake just looks like unwatchable rubbish.
Posted by: Tony.T | 25 July 2005 at 10:22
For you film buffs out there...
http://pages.liveauctions.ebay.com/catalogs/catalog17682.html
It's an auction of hollywood props - the jewels of the crown being a couple of lightsabres. There's load of crap in there, but some cool stuff too from movies like The Ten Commandments and some Ray Harryhausen casts.
Posted by: Russell Allen | 27 July 2005 at 11:02
Wow, great film. Loved the mid-50's Los Angeles setting.
Posted by: carneagles | 10 August 2005 at 11:41
Well carneagles, if you saw it because of this Grogflog then my work here on this planet is done.
Seriously though, the aim of this exercise is basically to turn people onto overlooked films. And, as Tony said when I pitched the idea to him, even if we get just one person to check out something we both think should deserve a bigger audience, then that makes it all worthwhile.
Your comment just made it all worthwhile.
Stayed tuned. Especially if yer into retro Californian filmscapes.
Posted by: Nabakov | 10 August 2005 at 19:59
Nabakov took the words right out of my mouth (and no, it's not while I was kissing me).
The idea that someone read the post, went out and watched at the fillum, and subsequently enjoyed it, makes the whole exercise worthwhile.
Posted by: Tony.T | 11 August 2005 at 14:44
I remember seeing kiss me deadly on daytime tv as a kid cos I was off sick from school.vMade me go and steal all my dad's Chandler Spillane & Hammet books & never give em back. Man, I'd love to see it again.
Posted by: Rob | 07 December 2005 at 08:16
Those were the days, Rob. Now all you get on daytime TV are telly movies about American moms struggling with booze, marriage, kids, drugs, gambling, menopause, etc.
Posted by: Tony.T | 07 December 2005 at 13:55