On this Day, Gene Tierney

At the end of October I put up a post saying, essentially, that I hadn't done all I wanted to do. In a month in which I had planned to delve fully into the emotional passions involved in horror I had, to my eyes, come up short. As such, I said I was going to extend October celebrations throughout the year. Well, here's the first holdover. Warning: SPOILERS ABOUND!



On this day in 1991 Gene Tierney died from complications arising from emphysema. She was 70 years old. Tierney was both a beauty and a fine actress with more than her share of personal tragedy. If you'd like to read about her personal life there are more than a few online biographies you can turn to for information. The reason however that I was going to write about her in October was for the 1945 film Leave Her to Heaven which is a sort of spiritual Godmother to Play Misty for Me and Fatal Attraction. Her character even commits suicide but makes it look like murder which is exactly how Fatal Attraction was slated to end before preview audiences stepped in and became screenwriters causing nutless Adrian Lyne to gleefully change the ending of his own movie. Not so with Leave Her to Heaven which must have turned some heads back in 1945 with its tale of a woman so possessed, obsessed and heartless that she watches the helpless paralyzed brother of her husband drown and doesn't bat an eyelash. She throws herself down a flight of stairs just weeks before giving birth to force a miscarriage ... just to get sympathy and attention from her husband who she suspects is falling for her sister (she's right). And in the end, as noted above, she kills herself by poisoning and frames it on her sister. Damn.

These kinds of movies have always been popular whether the obsessed party is male (King of Comedy, The Eyes of Laura Mars, The Fan) or female (the above mentioned Play Misty for Me and Fatal Attraction) there's just something really creepy about someone who won't stop thinking about you! In Leave Her to Heaven, one of the first of its kind, the same maddening and mystifying traits of the stalker/obsessor are examined. Ellen (Gene Tierney) has had relationships before so what is it about this one with Richard Harland (Cornell Wilde, and no, he doesn't blog at Movie Morlocks) that sends her over the edge? Her former fiance, played by Vincent Price, is clearly in love with her and wants her but she, for whatever reason, has locked her sights onto Harland and won't veer away. From the first unilateral decision she makes, announcing to everyone after only a single outing with Harland at her family ranch that they are to be married you know there's going to be trouble. Later, when Harland, a novelist, decides to dedicate his latest novel to Ruth (Jean Simmons), Ellen's sister, he is told by their mother, "Oh no. You should dedicate it to Ellen. You should dedicate all your books to Ellen." The mother knows what Richard is willfully choosing not to see and this is her way of warning him. Foolishly, he doesn't heed the warning and the events described above, leading to her suicide, begin to unfold. But does she win? Will Richard and Ruth go to prison for murder? Yes and no. I won't completely spoil the film for those who haven't seen it (although I've come pretty damn close) but it's compelling that the movie allows the murderous Ellen a even partial victory in the end. And on top of that, she went out at the hour and means of her own choosing effectively avoiding justice for her murderous deeds.

Leave Her to Heaven is a well told tale of murderous obsession and Tierney would never again have a role that demanded as much from her as an actress. She wasn't Ingrid Bergman or Katherine Hepburn it's true, but she was a damn good Gene Tierney and in this film, more than even Laura, she showed an impressive display of acting chops. This November 20th would have been her 89th birthday.

Calling All Krauthammers! A TOERIFC All Points Bulletin

It occurs to me that the next TOERIFC movie, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, is coming up soon but...

I don't know when!

And I cannot locate any e-mail anywhere for the mysterious Krauthammer who is the one covering it. So, Krauthammer, please comment below or e-mail me as to when the hell we're doing this thing. The 16th or the 23rd would work best. Let me know which is preferable.

And until we all find out when this is going to happen, everyone please get a hold of a copy of Paul Schrader's Mishima and give it a look so you can join in the discussion. Thanks.

The Land Before CGISan Francisco

One of the best parts of blogging is starting new features that are invariably forgotten, scuffed up, stepped on and finally, mercifully, left for dead. "I'm starting a new feature..." is bloggerspeak for "I'm bored and have an idea that I will stick with for one or two posts, maybe three, and then move on. Hope you're not expecting too much!" I've done it and most other film bloggers have done it too. Whether or not they want to own up to the whole sordid affair is their business. But here's the thing:

I'm starting a new feature!

And like a gambler convinced he's finally figured out a way to beat the system I am here to assure you it will not be forgotten. Why? Because in my feverish obsession with editing together images and effects and music I have already created enough clips for this feature to last well into 2011. I purposely held off starting it until I was absolutely positive I had enough clips to carry me through the lean years, as it were. And what is this new feature (hold for maximum reader letdown)? A celebration of miniature and effects work from before 1993, the year Jurassic Park all but effectively killed the miniature business in Hollywood. There are still great examples of miniature work done post 1993, like Independence Day, but not many. My feature will focus on the craftsmanship behind the work that went into creating these little worlds on the silver screen.

One very important point: The quality of the film is of no concern as evidenced by my mention of Independence Day. My concern is to celebrate great hands-on effects work from a bygone era, even if it is the only thing worth seeing in the whole movie. Also, if making fun of how "fake" miniatures and models look is your bag these posts will hold little appeal for you. I'm not here to poke fun at the amazing work done by craftspeople and artisans that the average person couldn't duplicate with a million dollars and all the time in the world if their life depended on it. I'm here to celebrate it. Each clip will start with the title and director but will end with the names of all involved in the production of the effects sequence, often uncredited on the movie itself but recognized today thanks to the complete credit listings for most movies found on IMDB. On the flip side I am also not here to deride CGI which I recognize is enormously important in the effects world today and has changed the industry immeasurably. It's just that celebrating the lost art of miniature and model work is the primary concern.

We start with San Francisco, a 1936 W.S. Van Dyke production with Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy. Its story of romance and business rivalry is well told but ends on a much too sentimental note to really embrace all that came before. Nonetheless, it is worth a viewing and the effects sequences for the earthquake are terrific.

Two of the most difficult things to deal with in miniature work are fire and water. Getting them "to scale" is impossible. A drop of water instantly betrays the size of the model ship it graces just as the size of a flame gives away the game for a model building. In San Francisco, effects photographer Loyal Griggs got around the problem as best he could by optically printing flames from a larger fire behind the models and making the models themselves as big as they could but still manipulative as miniatures.

Another problem faced with miniatures is the speed at which debris falls. On a larger scale it appears to fall more slowly and so high-speed cameras are employed to shoot the footage at many more frames per second than is custom so that it will play back at a slower but graceful speed. This sometimes but not always works. Note the dynamiting of the Victorian house in the clip. It is shown twice being dynamited. The first time looks like a model, the second time it appears much more natural. Why? The fault lies not with the high-speed photography but with the fact that the house was designed as a breakaway house rather than letting the explosives blow it apart. Thus, after the first explosion, we see whole sections of the house suddenly make clean breaks from the rest of the house betraying its model status. But the second explosion deals only with debris and as we see it fly into the air and slowly cascade down it has the look of the real thing.

Unfortunately, even on IMDB, the model makers are not listed, only members of the special effects crew. I hope that means the model makers as well because I would hate to not credit them for their extraordinary work. Also, as with any special effects sequence, sound is very important but the only credit is for the famed Douglas Shearer, head of the sound department. While he was certainly involved in many films of the era it was also common practice to simply put the head of the department on the credits (like Cedric Gibbons or Edith Head) giving short shrift to the many technicians working beneath them that often did most of the heavy lifting. I'd like to list the technicians who did such great Foley work on these scenes but sadly their names are lost to the ages.

Finally, let's remember that all the special effects members listed did some amazing full-scale work as well as seen when the street splits in two or the opera house starts breaking apart with hundreds of people inside. Enjoy.

Saints be Praised!

Cue The Four Tops.

Horror - But Once Each Year?

Every year around this time I feel like an interloper. The great blogs with a focus on the darker side, from Arbogast on Film to Final Girl, from Frankensteinia to Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire and even Cinebeats and Coffee Coffee and more Coffee, not exclusively horror blogs as they cover all genres of films but are certainly comfortable tackling horror with precise expertise, must get annoyed at all the non-horror blogs suddenly joining the club for a scant 31 days and acting like they know anything at all on the subject. I must admit that with each post I write in October I imagine they are all out there shaking their heads thinking, "I've read about this topic about a million times before on horror blogs dude. If you read them too you'd know how stale this is." And I know that while my most paranoid visions may be false the general belief is true. For instance, I wrote a post on Peter Cushing this October. How many posts on Peter Cushing have there been on horror blogs? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? A million? And yet each October I feel compelled to celebrate horror despite my amateur standing in the community. I feel compelled because I love both horror and science fiction and the fantasy elements they bring to film. But why only once a year?



I cannot stick to one genre for very long I admit. I once tried to do a whole month of nothing but Sci-Fi banners and even that I abandoned after a mere week. I love Sci-Fi but the idea of not using so many other great banners from so many other genres gnawed at me until I caved. In another case, a couple of years ago I devoted a whole month to movies and events important in the history of the Production Code. By the end of the month I was so sick of it I've yet to broach the subject again. But that's not the real problem. The problem is that I foolishly avoid the genre for most of the rest of the year. There have been times, too many to count, where I have an idea for a horror post that I don't do because I think, "I'll save this for October." Then when October finally rolls around the post has disappeared into the cobwebbed recesses of my doddering mind.

This has all been swimming around my brain lately because this year in particular proved a difficult one for saying what I wanted. There were and are many obligations that stood in the way of a full scale celebration of horror, mixed in with a generous dose of blogger fatigue and an ever increasing captivation with photo blogging (three of the four places I blog at are photo blogs). And so many of the posts I had planned never materialized, including a video post where I narrate the images to express my thoughts on the subject. And frankly, I know if I wait until next year almost all the ideas I had for posts this year will be lost forever and I'd still like to write them.

So write them I shall.

If you'll forgive me, this year's October celebrations will spill over into November, December, January and on through to September and why shouldn't they? Why restrict myself to one month out of the year? I don't want to be the interloper anymore. I don't want to feel like the Johnny Come Lately showing up at a bar full of regulars and acting like I own the place. So I think I'll follow the lead offered by Kimberly Lindbergs and Peter Nellhaus and throw horror into the mix whenever I feel like it. I still don't have anywhere near the expertise of either of them, or of the great Arbogast on Film, but I have a love for the genre and a compulsion to express it. If I'm honest, I suppose this whole post is just a way of saying I'm sorry I didn't do more this year. I'm sorry I let you down.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Halloween and a safe one. This year it falls on a Saturday which, if you have children in their late teens and early twenties (and I do), is always a bit of a worry. Trick or treating is much less fretful than late night parties with kids who are under the delusion they're adults. No matter how much guidance you give, how many restrictions you enact, at some point, it's up to them and for a parent that's always a bit scary especially when you look back and realize you didn't figure anything out until around 40.

So have a safe one and a happy one boys and ghouls. Happy Halloween!

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P.S. - That's me in the blog banner (as well as the picture at the top of this post) by the way. It occurred to me that most people didn't know after I asked a couple about it. I don't look like that all the time, I just hadn't had my coffee yet.

P.P.S. - I would be remiss if I did not point out that both Bill and Arbogast made the decision to do a special post each day (31 posts on horror fiction for Bill and 31 posts on horror movie screams for Arbogast) and by God, they stuck to it! Spend some time reading through them all when you get the chance if you haven't already. I humbly bow before both of them.

Black Sabbath Poster Bonanza

Look at the great posters below for Mario Bava's Black Sabbath. They're courtesy of a wonderful site entitled The Wrong Side of Art and I heartily recommend going there and browsing their immense archives. I put them up to remind everyone that there are still three days to go in Kevin Olson's Italian Horror Blogathon. It's final day is Halloween itself so submit your own entry today! This simple poster post will have to suffice for my entry as I am not prepared to do anything more unfortunately. I'll level with you: it's been pretty damn busy around here with our oldest daughter reaching her deadline for college applications (this Friday) and I've been researching, writing and editing towards those purposes which explains why things have been more on the video side around here than the writing side. No one is applying to college next year (we hope) so I should have more time to devote to Cinema Styles October 2010: 100 Acre Horror, in which I spend the entire month interpreting horror through the lens of Winnie the Pooh and friends. The post on Eeyore alone should send chills down your spine. Until then, enjoy these posters and submit your own entry to the Italian Horror Blogathon soon!

Creepy Moments:The Blood on Satan's Claw

I've been leaning a little heavy on the video clips lately but I have many videos I want to show and there's only four days left until Halloween. Here's another creepy moment, this time from The Blood on Satan's Claw. Enjoy.

Alternate Dream Sequence fromThe ExorcistWhat Might Have Been

The dream sequence from The Exorcist has become legendary: Father Karras trying to make contact with his mother, she turning away and that mask, the death mask that is Pazuzu. Most horror fans know it frame by frame. But what if the original version had made it into the film as seen in this newly discovered rough cut with it's unmatched lighting between the shots of Karras and his mother? Two famous actors were used for the mother and Pazuzu roles but later the shots were scrapped in favor of unknowns. The footage would never die however. A few years later Sidney Pollack would become intrigued with the footage shot of the famous actor as the mother and build a whole film around it, even using this original footage in that film. But what if William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, had left it in? What might have been.

Scary Face #1

Presenting the "Scary Face" series. Watch at your own risk. Images are terrifying. Small children should be gently but firmly escorted away from computer before playing. Not for the faint of heart. You've been warned.

Building the Scene: The Birds

Alfred Hitchcock is a director so well known and beloved by both cinephiles and non-cinephiles alike that most writers on the art of cinema would prefer to talk about someone else should the opportunity arise. After all, hasn't Hitch been analyzed, critiqued, elevated and deconstructed ad nauseum at this point? Probably, but that's not going to stop me from doing it again. Why? Because sometimes a director is so well known and beloved that we take for granted just how skillful said director is behind the camera. For this extended edition of this October's "Creepy Moments" series I'd like to look at how effectively Alfred Hitchcock achieved extraordinary suspense and tension in the much misunderstood The Birds, a film considered at the time a lackluster follow-up to Psycho (but wouldn't most films ever made suffer from the same perception) but upon further reflection is as brilliant in many ways as Hitchcock gets.

One of the most effective elements of The Birds is its lack of music. Impressive and memorable musical scores are as associated with Hitchcock's films as Italians with guns are with Martin Scorsese's and yet The Birds is silent. It's music is the call of the birds themselves. It's opening credit sequence alone, with fleeting blurred images of crows flying in and out of the frame, their cacophonous caws the only sound we hear, is a marvel of tension filled disquiet. The film is in bold technicolor but without music it appears distant and faded, the conversations feel overheard, and the characters sans musical cues for heroism and courage seem all too human and all too vulnerable.

While there is much to admire here the setup for the attack on the schoolchildren is one of Hitchcock's finest hours as a director. Most documentaries on Hitchcock make the mistake of showing this scene from where Tippi Hedren sits down on the bench. This is wrong because Hitchcock begins the tension at the top of the scene with Hedren's convertible seen driving towards the schoolhouse. The audience doesn't know it yet but this opening shot is a psychological plant on the part of the director. He is fixing the image of the schoolhouse on the hill in the viewer's mind as a serene image of peacefulness. Nothing can go wrong here. Later when the children are fleeing we will see this same shot only with hundreds of birds rising up magnificently behind it. It's a visual strong enough on its own to signal extreme and imminent danger but combined with the memory of the peaceful schoolhouse planted in our minds just moments before it becomes something else entirely, something more unnatural and at odds with our perceptions of how the world should look and work.

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By the time Hedren walks into the school to warn the teacher and students the scene is essentially over. The attack follows and works because Hitchcock built up a lingering menace in the playground first but it's superfluous to the tension already achieved. And again, when you watch it, take note of how quiet the scene is. The birds make little to no noise and the children's singing is muted from inside the schoolhouse. The song they're singing provides a kind of tempo to the scene as well as a haunting quality, as if ghostly voices were singing in the distance.

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Next is the attack. The opening swarm from behind the schoolhouse echoes the earlier serene shot with the car approaching it. As I said, the thrust of this scene is done anyway with the setup but is mesmerizing to watch regardless and provides a terrific payoff to the initial setup.

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Finally there is the film's ending. I've talked to many a person unimpressed with this ending. "It just kind of... ends, you know." I don't know how to respond to that. It doesn't "just end" it fades out into quite possibly the end of the world, the beginning of an assault on humanity by nature or just the end of human settlement in Bodega Bay. Whatever the true "end" may be I find this conclusion to the story one of Hitchcock's ballsiest moments as a director. Note just near the end how the crows caws go from natural sound to heightened unnatural sound just before the fade out. What does that say? Again, no music, no credits, not even the words "The End." Note that the camera precedes the three principals making their way outside. For the camera to do this there can be no door, otherwise Rod Taylor would have to reach "through" the camera to get to it and then the camera would block it from opening. In a brilliant solution by the cinematographer Robert Burks, Rod Taylor simply mimes opening the non-existent door while a lighting effect fills in the rest. It works beautifully.

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If you haven't seen The Birds, and I can't imagine there are too many out there that haven't, it is readily available pretty much everywhere. Give it a look but be prepared to meet the movie halfway. The Birds is a movie that keeps its secrets closely guarded, under the wing.

Gently Johnny: A Picture Book Story

"A picture of me arresting somebody would look soooo cool right here."
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The bacon trees are in bloom!
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and the manager gives me a smile;
'cause he knows that it's me;
they've been coming to see;
to forget about life for a while.
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"Excuse us please. Is this the Overlook?"
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Here comes the king, here comes the king, here comes the big number one.
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You're stupid!
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No you're stupid!
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Touchdown!!!
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Best tailgate party. Ever.
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For the real deal, go here. Best review of this film you'll read.

Kiss Me, Stupid

I'll be at Illusions Travel by Streetcar today to discuss Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid for this month's TOERIFC selection but I'll be back for October festivities later. Come join us if you've seen it, admission is free.

One Last Reminder: TOERIFC Monday Approaches

October 19th is TOERIFC Monday which means Tom Sutpen will be hosting this month's discussion at his place. No, not the well-manicured grounds of Sutpen's Hundred but the well-manicured blog Illusions Travel by Streetcar. The movie? Kiss Me, Stupid directed by the legendary Billy Wilder. Our discussions usually begin at 10:00 EST and I encourage everyone to check out the movie and join in the discussion. It is readily available on Amazon and i-tunes so there's no excuse not to. See you there!

Synthetic Flesh

Continuing the "Creepy Moments" series for this month we move on to Doctor X from 1932, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray and Lee Tracy, none of whom are in this scene (but Preston Foster is). And yes, it's a scene not a moment. Furthermore, it's not very creepy with all the electronic gizmos and gadgets pulsating throughout the scene probably removing any sense of creepiness to the modern eye but I don't care because I love the movie, the whole damn ridiculous thing, and the scene. And if you've never seen Doctor X and would like to see it fresh DO NOT WATCH THIS SCENE. This scene is in fact the spoiler of the movie where the Moon Killer's real identity is finally revealed. Otherwise please do watch this entertaining and goofy scene in which the Moon Killer disguises himself before the kill by applying mounds of goopy synthetic flesh to his face (which is kind of funny because immediately following this scene he reveals who he is without hesitation to the other characters who have been trying to solve his identity).

Remember These Monsters?

I've been blogging long enough now that I can actually feel comfortable pulling stuff from the archives that I want to highlight again. This is my favorite montage from last year by far, a short celebration of Lugosi, Karloff and Lanchester, the three "monsters" that put Universal horror on the map. Since I won't be covering any old-time Universal Horror or otherwise (sorry, but this year is all Hammer on up) I felt it apt to use this montage from last year as a substitute for any more in-depth posts on the subject. Enjoy.