Category: Directors Wh

Evil (2019) s02e08 – B Is for Brain

“Evil” has definitely hit the part of the production run when they knew they were streaming only. The F-bombs come in dialogue and not in voiceover or inserts. And Katja Herbers’s journey to wherever gets to be a lot more intense. Well, maybe. I don’t know; would CBS have let them do cross-shaped burns on her belly she likes rubbed to pain during gagged, animal mask sex? When the season was still in its obviously made-for-broadcast television episodes, Herbers was plotting to step out on absentee husband, Patrick Brammall (who’s a much better part of the show when we’re not supposed to like him because he’s a buzzkill). Does standards and practices prefer marital Szechuan strawberry or extramarital vanilla?

Anyway.

This episode is about Herbers, Mike Colter, and Aasif Mandvi investigating Cornell University scientist Michael Esper’s new project. He’s made a “Heaven helmet” by accident, and the Vatican wants to know if they should investigate. Now, Cornell’s a private university, and it’s unclear why Esper is willing to do whatever the Vatican wants but… whatever. The point of the experiment is actually brain-mapping, but it turns out it makes subjects have lucid heaven dreams. Colter thinks the Vatican wants it because it’ll help believers. Herbers and Mandvi think they want it so they can brainwash people with science-y stuff.

All that stuff is first act and finale fluff. The meat is Herbers, Colter, and Mandvi imagining the afterlife or whatever.

Except none of them have that vision. Instead, Mandvi has one about his mom and Islam, which works but gets dropped once the episode gets on to spicer possibilities for Colter and Herbers. See, Herbers is still hung-up on Colter whether she admits it or not–or so therapist Kurt Fuller, making a welcome return, observes–and having Brammall back isn’t making it any better.

Meanwhile, Colter’s trying to figure things out with the help of badass nun Andrea Martin, who also has a great standoff with Michael Emerson.

Plus, there’s some great Christine Lahti facing off against constant disappointment of a son-in-law Brammall.

While “Evil” hasn’t shed all of its network procedural, and maybe it’s moving towards its streaming future, it’s definitely finding its footing in the evolution. The show’s tied a bunch of knots it’s going to have to unravel; it still looks very much like a network procedural—James Whitmore Jr.’s direction is acceptable—but its momentum isn’t slowing.

Terrific acting from Herbers and Mandvi this episode. And Martin, of course.

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985, Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat)

Life is profoundly cheap in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. The film’s ostensibly about little human orphan Aubree Miller’s adventure with her Ewok buddy Warwick Davis and the old man (Wilford Brimley) who takes care of them after a group of bad guys appear out of nowhere and destroy the Ewok village and pew pew away Miller’s family, who survived the previous Ewok movie. I believe that one also had Ewoks with names other than Davis’s one (who can speak English here); no names for the Ewoks anymore. Also not much Ewok action. They disappear for a large portion of the movie, when it’s apparently more fun to watch Brimley pretend to be a mean old man to newly orphaned Miller and separated from his tribe Davis.

Davis’s subplot about the missing Ewoks is kind of the important one until evil human witch Siân Phillips—who lives in bad guy Carel Struycken’s medieval castle and has never heard of spaceships before Miller tells her about them—kidnaps Miller so Miller can explain interstellar travel to Struycken. Struycken and his gang are aliens, but extremely cheap ones for a Star Wars product; apparently their species is based on some bad Ralph McQuarrie concept drawings from Empire Strikes Back.

Doesn’t matter.

The first act, ruining Miller’s life and making Davis’s rather inconvenient, is fairly bad. For whatever reason, directors Wheat are quite bad at the action sequence involving Struycken attacking the village. Some of it’s clearly budget—not sure who decided it was too expensive to do matte paintings of the Ewok village (or just use some Kenner playset backdrops)—but some of it’s just bad directing. Rather inglorious farewells to returning actors Eric Walker and Paul Gleason, though Gleason’s is much worse just for being in the movie longer.

The second act’s tedious and cloying, though Miller’s not anywhere near as obnoxious as she could be—initially it seems weird she and Davis treat being on the run from a murderous gang like being on a nature hike, but given how bad it gets when she and Brimley talk about their feelings… I mean, at least the nature walk has pretty scenery. It’ll eventually look just like the forests from Return of the Jedi, but then because they’re obviously using footage from a better movie—even if it weren’t the competent special effects or better film stock, Davis’s costume doesn’t have the weird eyes he gets in this one.

They go really cheap on the Ewok costumes, so it’s pretty impressive when the third act action sequences are actually not bad. They can’t save Battle for Endor (it’s a fairly tepid battle, though based on the variety of alien species, it’d be interesting to know how they all evolved), but once the Ewoks come back into the movie… it’s occasionally entertaining. Even if the Ewok costumes look like pajama sets with matching slippers.

Other bad elements include Peter Bernstein’s music—he’ll occasionally imply some John Williams but never followthrough (it’s a shock when they use actual Star Wars sound effects for thirteen seconds, around the time Brimley gets to pretend he’s Harrison Ford and then they drop it because it doesn’t play because Miller clearly hasn’t seen A New Hope–but then Bernstein turns around and misses an obvious Jaws reference, which reminds me Endor gets very slapstick with its violence at the end. But no less fatal.

Also real bad is Isidore Mankofsky’s photography but what he’s going to do with the Brothers Wheat directing. Eric Jenkins’s editing is fine. Joe Johnston’s production design is not, but how much can you blame on him unless he’s personally responsible for the truly terrible matte paintings.

Brimley isn’t any good but he keeps it together far better than anyone could expect. He earns his paycheck, most definitely. He, Miller, and Davis don’t really embarrass themselves… as opposed to almost everyone else involved.

Fargo (2014) s04e10 – Happy

Is it sunny and nice in Kansas City in the winter? This episode presumably takes place in January 1951 and unless there was an unexpected heatwave… it’s like they forgot what month it takes place.

The episode opens with a lengthy montage sequence showing the gang war in progress, along with some grim and gritty newspaper photos of actual dead mobsters like the show felt the need to explain they weren’t glorifying violence, they were just showing how it really was and is. Might have been more effective if the sequence didn’t segue into a “Wire” montage for Jessie Buckley. She’s finally figured out her real nemesis is E'myri Crutchfield so she’s going to go right up to her and threaten her to her face in front of witnesses. It doesn’t matter because Crutchfield’s Black and no one’s going to listen to her, just Buckley.

At least they follow up on it. The previous regular episode ends with a presumably big development for Jason Schwartzman and Salvatore Esposito but this episode reveals it doesn’t warrant even a mention. Esposito’s got an okay episode, Schwartzman’s pretty blah. Esposito is able to shift gears to do the happy brothers bit while Schwartzman’s just as awkward as ever. Chris Rock might have been miscast but it’s also the show’s fault he’s not connecting; Schwartzman’s miscast and bad.

This episode has Rock bringing in some other, different help—Edwin Lee Gibson–with Hannah Love Jones doing a Lady MacBeth bit. J. Nicole Brooks is fine, Gibson’s hilarious as a country Black mobster, but the whole subplot also invalidates the previous scenes where Rock’s the man of the crime family on his own. Then again I just realized Brooks’s mother disappears from the series without a trace so who knows. It definitely wouldn’t be worth an extended “Fargo: Season Four” to flesh out these ideas.

Then there’s Jack Huston, who’s finally the hero cop he always wanted to be. Sure, he’s haunted by when he screwed Timothy Olyphant out of his big collar, but this episode sort of reveals Olyphant was a crutch “Season Four” shouldn’t have had. It needed something and the Olyphant crutch worked for a while, but it didn’t do the show itself any good.

The ghost is back to deus ex machina one of the subplots and we even get an explanation of how where he’s from and why he hasn’t been back to “Fargo.” Or hasn’t been in “Fargo” before.

It’s not all connected, after all.

We do finally get the big scene for Crutchfield with Rock, which the show’s been promising directly for a few episodes and implying for longer, but it’s a silly contrived resolution scene. Crutchfield’s fine but it’s not a good scene or plot development.

But this episode’s leagues better than director Sylvain White’s last one. Still bad direction, but Noah Hawley apparently decided to stop letting his terrible co-execs write episodes and ruin the show.

Fargo (2014) s04e08 – The Nadir

It’s pretty obvious episode director Sylvain White has seen The Untouchables a bunch and maybe one of the Godfather movies–III probably—but there’s no evidence he’s seen, you know, Miller’s Crossing, Fargo, or even an episode of “Fargo.” Despite the episode seemingly having a bigger budget than most, it’s startlingly poorly directed. The Nadir isn’t where “Fargo: Season Four” jumps the shark, it’s where “Fargo: Season Four” goes looking for more sharks to jump scene after scene.

Of course, what’s worse—White’s direction or the script, ostensibly from Noah Hawley, Enzo Mileti, and Scott Wilson? Probably the script? The dialogue never feels like “Fargo” or even a spoof of “Fargo”—dear Dana Gonzales, I apologize for thinking you were going to ruin the show with your direction because nothing compares to Sylvain White.

The episode opens with what seems like a black comedy rom-com between Jason Schwartzman and Jessie Buckley. It’s kind of impressive because she manages to be worse in the scene, if only because she’s got to check up on her side villainy and—again—it’s impossible to believe Buckley could be at all successful at it because she’s clearly terrible at it. Outside her Linda Cardellini impression, she can’t hold an accent either.

We get some justification for why Schwartzman’s so terrible, then he gets what plays like a dream sequence opposite brother Salvatore Esposito. At this point, it no longer feels like the same show as any previous episode because it’s so patently silly. Also, the writing on the characters is completely different—are Mileti and Wilson just abject hacks—which will continue on throughout with the rest of the cast.

Chris Rock, for example, has almost nothing to do because all of a sudden they forgot how to write his character?

There’s a big showdown between Timothy Olyphant and Rock, which should be good, but is not. James Vincent Meredith’s great though. And Matthew Elam and E'myri Crutchfield are cute together (Elam’s Rock’s oldest son so there’s a little bit of a Romeo and Juliet thing going). Otherwise?

It’s terrible.

Jeff Russo’s music is so bad (and entirely different) I didn’t think he did it. Gonzalo Amat’s cinematography is entirely about lighting the scenery and not the people. Got to make it look as much like The Untouchables as possible. It’s so badly done, a baby carriage would’ve actually helped.

Schwartzman isn’t the only one with the redemptive arc here either—actually, justification arc for him—the show breaks its back to give Jack Huston one too. Including him confessing being a dirty cop before Olyphant brings him along on an important assignment. But he’s confessed his sins so it’s fine.

Or garbage.

More like garbage.

The rushed ending is hilariously overwrought and silly.

White’s managed to bring “Fargo” to a previously unimaginable low. No doubt with help from Hawley and Mileti and Wilson. It’s trite tripe. Worst of all, previous season standout Esposito is utterly inept at the refreshed characterization of his role. It’s a truly depressing fifty minutes.

Karen Aldridge’s still great though. Even if all of a sudden they light her poorly.

The Invisible Man (2020, Leigh Whannell)

The Invisible Man is surprisingly okay. I mean, once you realize it’s just going to be lead Elisabeth Moss in constant terror of an invisible abusive partner lashing out at her and Moss is good at being terrified for long periods, it seems like a bit of a gimme, but until the middle of the movie… it could potentially be good even.

Unfortunately director (and writer) Whannell can’t figure out how to turn his actual invisible man into a good visual monster—the eventual set pieces are like video games where you’re in stealth mode and the biggest effects sequence ends the second act, which… I guess is good if it’s because Whannell’s got no confidence in his abilities to pull off a bigger set piece. Odds are it would’ve been disappointing.

The movie stops being scary once they “visualize” the invisible man, it stops being much good in the third act. The Invisible Man runs two hours. Even with ten minute end credits, Whannel has to pad a bunch of it out so there are multiple twists and reveals. Especially since there are no subplots and the whole “everyone thinks Moss is making it up” stuff only matters for a bit at the beginning of the second act and then it’s inconsequential because everything’s a long suspense sequence. Moss’s friends not believing her is just the longest expository section before the next suspense sequence, it’s not like Whannell’s actually got narrative ambitions.

The movie opens with Moss escaping abusive boyfriend Oliver Jackson-Cohen (who’s terrible). Moss’s sister, Harriet Dyer (not good and definitely the worst performance before Jackson-Cohen gets to shine), helps her but they’re not close enough Moss has told Dyer why she needs help.

Moss stays with family friend Aldis Hodge, who’s a cop we find out later–Invisible Man loves cops, at one point Moss tells Dyer she’s awesome because she’s like a cop, it’s a weird flex but Whannell’s dialogue is fairly vapid and Moss’s worst scenes are the expository ones so whatever. Hodge being a cop isn’t really going to be important. The movie pretends it’s important, up until the very end, but it’s not important at all.

Hodge isn’t good. He’s profoundly disappointing.

Storm Reid is his precocious teenage daughter. She’s pretty good. It’s not a good part and she’s eventually and inevitably reduced to potential slasher victim number four or whatever. But she’s pretty good. Especially compared to Hodge and Dyer.

After some relative calm and good news and putting her life back together stuff, we get to the invisible man antics. Only The Invisible Man is low budget and pragmatic about it so the antics are mundane, pseudo-inventive stuff. Pseudo because there’s CGI and it’s easy to get rid of any strings.

And because Whannell shoots everything in long shot and then has the action unfold in the long shot. Again, easy now thanks to CGI and relatively effective so long as Moss can stay terrified. And she can.

Before The Invisible Man and during the ineffective stylized opening titles, I wasn’t expecting much. By the hour mark, I was expecting at least something. With the blah third act and so many middling (at best) performances, it comes in definitely about not much but decidedly below at least something.

But still much better than expected regardless.

Champagne for Caesar (1950, Richard Whorf)

What’s so frustrating about Champagne for Caesar is how little the film really would’ve need to do to be a success. It just needed a rewrite. Someone to come in and fix Hans Jacoby and Frederick Brady’s script, which is usually fine but they really can’t figure out what to do with Celeste Holm. And given Holm is second-billed (albeit below the title) and doesn’t come into the picture until moments before the halfway point… it’s like there needs to be a point to Holm.

And there really isn’t.

Up to the point Holm arrives, it really seems like the film knows what to do. Until then, the biggest problems with it are director Whorf’s bland close-up inserts—you can just imagine the actors mugging at nothing instead of the other actor in the scene—and Art Linkletter’s game show host. Linkletter’s supposed to be a jackass so he gets a lot of leeway—he really does seem like a jackass. But even he’s able to redeem himself and help move the film into position to really take off with Holm.

So the film, which starts consciously objectifying sunbathing Ellye Marshall because—as the narrator informs the audience—there won’t be any chance for it later, is actually about erudite Ronald Colman. Colman’s dedicated his life to learning all that is learnable, content to sit and read, doing the odd job to help with the bills, but it’s obvious sister Barbara Britton is supporting them. She teaches piano. It’s crappy—while Colman doesn’t look his fifty-nine years, he’s visibly older than Britton and there’s a story in how they ended up together, with Britton acting like she’s a spinster just because she doesn’t sunbathe.

This portion of the film, with Colman and Britton just hanging out and trying to get by while being eccentric—they invite Britton’s student, Byron Foulger, to a show and it ends up them watching a television through the store window. Historically accurate but it’s not a “show.” The scene has Foulger perplexed at how he’s ended up sharing the activity with them; it’s really strong stuff—Whorf’s direction is never better than in the first act, though there are some returns to form later on. Colman and Britton just perfectly click.

So Colman has this bad job interview with this weird soap company run by oddball businessman Vincent Price. What makes Price so funny is how everyone indulges his eccentricities when he’s really just a poseur. It pisses Colman off, so much he decides to sabotage Price’s game show—the soap company sponsors a quiz show and who better to go on a quiz show than Colman, who’s got encyclopedic knowledge and instant recall.

While at the game show, Britton gets taken with Linkletter, which doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a great arc or anything—quite the opposite—until they fall in love. Again, shouldn’t work, but does work. After Colman keeps winning, Linkletter offers to use Britton’s crush to snoop on Colman; except Britton knows Linkletter’s doing it and doesn’t care. She’s not going to betray Colman—though she’s against his game show revenge plan—but she’s also not going to stop seeing Linkletter.

Very unexpected, very well-executed. You get to see Price just completely lose it, which you’ve been hoping he’s going to do since his first scene and the payoff’s there. The third act bungles Price in a lot of ways—somewhat through neglecting him—but he’s mostly magnificent and absurdly so.

But everything going so well makes it seem like the film’s going to know what to do when it brings in Holm, who’s a professional troublemaker. Price hires her to seduce and destroy Colman. Holm poses as a nurse to take care of man cold suffering Colman, working to quickly sabotage him with her feminine wiles.

Except Holm mugs through all the feminine wiles scenes—very effectively, but it doesn’t seem like the script’s written for that approach. And, although he’s obviously taken with her, Colman’s not believably moony about her. The scenes where he’s got to be a jealous mess, Colman plays with a shrug. His character’s willing to lose $20 million to make a point, it doesn’t seem like Holm manipulating him will get much mileage.

During this section of the film—so the middle to the third act start or thereabouts—Britton basically disappears. Colman even comments on her absence. Presumably she’s off with Linkletter but seeing them sit around and talk about Colman’s chances on the game show would probably be more interesting than the feigned screwball stuff with Colman and Holm. If Whorf could keep up with the actors, it’d probably be fine. Colman and Holm are doing different things but never bumping into each other. They’ve got a professional grace, even though the script’s clunky and the direction’s detached.

Then Colman and Britton get back together in the third act to regroup and Caesar’s all of a sudden so much better for a moment; it’s like you’ve forgotten the ground the film’s lost through its runtime.

The ending’s not bad just flat. Tepid. Lukewarm. Blah.

There’s some excellent material in it—Price is a hoot, Britton’s quite good, Colman and Holm are solid; Caesar never tasks Colman and he always gives more than the scene needs. Just needs a better script and more decisive direction.

This post is part of the Vincent Price Blogathon hosted by Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews and Barry of Cinematic Catharsis.

Evil (2019) s01e08 – 2 Fathers

So this episode has—you guessed it—two dads in it. Well, it’s probably got more than two dads in it, but only two where it’s important they’re dads.

The first dad is Vondie Curtis-Hall as Mike Colter’s dad. They estranged because it’s TV and there’s no way a guy’s not estranged with his dad if he’s on TV. The show doesn’t really get into the big stuff of the estrangement, but it appears to be over Colter’s religiosity. Not about Curtis-Hall running a hippie commune with his two wives (I was going to name the actors but there’s no point, they’re immaterial to the episode—the actors’ performances, not the characters… though sort of the characters).

Curtis-Hall is… sort of a guest star. Sort of. I mean, I like Vondie Curtis-Hall but it’s a nothing part; he looks great for seventy too, like they had to make him up to appear older. Colter and Katja Herbers head to the farm to see him because Colter sees Curtis-Hall is using the “Evil” demon sigils in his art. They drop acid, it’s a whole thing. Colter and Curtis-Hall bond over being Black men (sort of); what’s most interesting about that part is it’s more important they bond over being Black men in America than actual demons overrunning the planet.

Herbers just gets messed up and horny for Colter, which is particularly bad because her husband—the other dad in the title—is back.

Patrick Brammall plays the dad. It’s good the show found someone who sucks as bad as the kids to play the father. They really choked on the casting. Also Christine Lahti is tripled down on being the devil’s willing concubine. Kind of hoping she just goes all in on the bad by the end of the season, maybe kill one of the grandkids, who knows. It’d be something.

No Michael Emerson, which is fine. Aasif Mandvi has a romance subplot with returning guest star Nicole Shalhoub, where she reveals she has a really silly woo secret. Kind of hope she’s never back again because “Evil” will just waste her.

“Evil” wastes everyone.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015, Joss Whedon)

There are no leads in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It is a collection of poorly staged Bond movie action sequences featuring different people in costumes doing outrageous things but never having much consequence to their actions. There’s no time for consequence, not when director Whedon has to get to the next brand to showcase. Age of Ultron is a commercial for itself, for its various brands. Whedon happily turns everyone in the film into a caricature. I wonder if there are special Disney executive glasses to reveal the actors aren’t really saying their often lame dialogue, they’re really telling moms to buy two of the Falcon figure, one for Junior and one for your husband. Avengers: Obey Ultron is a better title anyway.

But it’s not a bad commercial. I mean, it’s not good, but it’s exceptional photography from Ben Davis. Davis saves this movie. He’s the only reason it’s tolerable. Whedon’s not good at the film. He tries a different, generic, accessible style for every set piece. He can’t do any of them, but Davis makes it work. Even when it’s outrageously stupid, Davis makes it work. Most of that outrageously stupid stuff comes in the middle section; it’s also when Age of Ultron gets better. Its cast can survive it being dumb. They’re already being poorly directed. Whedon does know what they should be doing though–the banter between Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans is initially lame, but they do build a chemistry, they do build a rapport. Age of Ultron is about a “team” but its actors are incredibly distant from one another. Whedon tries to stage group shots, but they’re painfully bad. No one has anything to say to one another.

Except for the two love stories. The very strange case of Mark Ruffalo, who has given up and doesn’t care who knows it, and Scarlett Johansson, who is bad in the film’s worst written role. And then Linda Cardellini as Jeremy Renner’s hidden bride. He didn’t tell the team! There’s a lot of team talk! Team, team, team! I even love typing the word team! Whedon’s got a very standard action story with the Ultron thing (an evil robot voiced by James Spader, who is awful in the film’s second worst written role), but then there’s the problem with the team! What problem with the team? The incredibly sketchily established problem with the team, because the team never really spends any real time together. Whedon’s got an idiotic present action for the film–a couple weeks at most, probably far less (no one ever sleeps in Age of Ultron because Toons don’t have to sleep)–and no time for actual character development. Instead, he tries to start straight at the second act of the subplots.

And, guess what, it’s bad. Just like the beginning and, unfortunately, end of the movie. Because, secretly, I really wanted to like this one. I thought it’d be funny. But this movie has a little kid living because a superhero died. Set to awful music from Brian Tyler and Danny Elfman. It’s laughable. It’s not effective because you can’t have effective with Toons. You sacrifice it for the spectacle.

Ultron has some spectacle. It’s kind of goofy and dumb, but it’s spectacle. It’s also terribly edited. Jeffrey Ford and Lisa Lassek don’t appear to have many choices (actors often are strangely not available for two shots), but it’s still terrible editing. So it has terribly edited, goofy, dumb spectacle. It’s also got Paul Bettany playing a riff on Superman, channeling Christopher Reeve. It’s weird, it’s out of place, but it’s something actually special in the midst of all the goofy stuff.

Same goes for Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen. Sort of. Olsen turns out to be really good in a lame part. She has most of her scenes with Taylor-Johnson and basically carries him up to her level. Sure, she’s playing a caricature, but really dang well and they do get a better story line than most in the film.

Of the four leads, Chris Hemsworth is the most impressive. He has the worst part, the lamest subplot, yet it’s a movie star performance. You pay attention. Even when he gets the lamest action sequences too. Ultron is a bad commercial for Thor movies, except Hemsworth changes your mind. Least impressive is Ruffalo, who I mentioned had given up. His performance is silly, partially because Whedon plays the Hulk for laughs and cuteness (really), partially because it’s just a goofy part, and partially because Ruffalo is barely conscious. You fall asleep watching him.

The problem with the movie, besides being forty minutes too long because it’s all some nonsense about the safety of civilians, which is less about distinguishing itself from the superhero competition, and more about Disney declaring its concern for everyone. Because everyone can visit Disney World someday. You gotta stay bland.

There’s some really lazy acting from Robert Downey Jr. He does get better for long stretches, but he’s real lazy. Sam Jackson has more energy than him, because Jackson just does Julius. He does Disney Julius. And for a moment, Age of Ultron feels like something. It feels like the team has come together. Not the A Team, this team.

Team.

Only Whedon screws it all up. It’s hard to blame anyone else, but it’s a little strange because he does bring some passion to the film. It just isn’t any of the action set pieces. It’s none of the character stuff. It’s the iconic stuff. He really wants to be able to do the iconic stuff and it just doesn’t come off.

And James Spader is awful. He’s awful. So awful.

I think I’m going to go for a thousand words on Age of Ultron just because of Spader. Whedon wrote Spader’s part for David Spade and then cast Spader. It’s weird, but it should be true. It’s a goofy, comic part.

Anyway, Ultron’s occasionally enjoyable, but more often lame.

Bettany rules!

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale)

For The Bride of Frankenstein, director Whale takes a contradictory approach. It's either more is more, or less is less. More music, all the time. Franz Waxman's frequently playful music rarely fits its scenes, unless Whale is going for a melodramatic farce, which he really doesn't seem to be doing. I kept hoping he would be, because it might make the film more compelling.

More Monster–Boris Karloff is nonsensically running around the countryside, finding someone to accidentally kill or not. William Hurlbut's screenplay contrives connections between loose, if memorable, scenes and never pauses to explain why the Monster kills another little girl. Maybe he really liked doing it from the first one.

Of course, the Monster could explain since Karloff now has lines to deliver. But all of his lines are lame.

Poor Colin Clive has almost nothing to do. None of the characters in Bride have arcs running the whole film–not even the Monster–but Clive pops in at the beginning and then at the end. In one of Hurlbut's weaker moments, Clive goes from pro-mad scientist to anti-mad scientist at the snap of the fingers. It's ludicrous.

Ernest Thesiger's good as the villain. Valerie Hobson not as Clive's wife.

Whale doesn't have enough coverage so Ted J. Kent's editing is usually bad. Except the finale, which is wondrous and is so tightly edited, one has to wonder why the rest of the film is so loose. Probably because there has to be a story.

It's a trying seventy-five minutes.

The Old Dark House (1932, James Whale)

The Old Dark House is a strange film about strange people doing strange things. Director Whale and screenwriter Benn W. Levy rarely let the film get a set tone–unless one counts the consistent mix of comedy and horror. It’s not straight comedy; the comic elements tend to be either absurdly strange or pedestrian. Husband and wife Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart bickering over his driving until the storm becomes too dangerous for an argument, for example.

Whale goes for peculiar horror elements–relying on his cast to be creepy enough in their performances sometimes, but other times utilizing for practical effects in scenes without a cast member having to do much. The editing, from Clarence Kolster, is spectacular. Whale often goes for a visceral reaction, like when Boris Karloff’s vicious manservant preys on Stuart.

But just like the mix of light comedy and horror, Whale and Levy take the time to deepen even Karloff’s character. All of the characters end up getting some depth, both the “regular” people and then the crazy family living in the titular house. The film’s both cynical and hopeful, with Lilian Bond’s chorus girl having an arrangement with industrialist Charles Laughton, but not one with expectations.

Because Laughton’s messed up, just like almost everyone in the film. Melvyn Douglas’s drunken, mildly broken World War I veteran is ostensible lead–it’s between him and Stuart–and the film subtly implies his problems.

It’s a deliberately, beautifully made, beautifully acted (Ernest Thesiger mesmerizes) film. Truly fantastic.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by James Whale; screenplay by Benn W. Levy and R.C. Sherriff, based on a novel by J.B. Priestley; director of photography, Arthur Edeson; edited by Clarence Kolster; produced by Carl Laemmle Jr.; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Boris Karloff (Morgan), Melvyn Douglas (Penderel), Charles Laughton (Sir William Porterhouse), Lilian Bond (Gladys), Ernest Thesiger (Horace Femm), Eva Moore (Rebecca Femm), Raymond Massey (Philip Waverton), Gloria Stuart (Margaret Waverton), Elspeth Dudgeon (Sir Roderick Femm) and Brember Wills (Saul Femm).

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