Following Big Trouble in Little China’s disappointing box office returns, director John Carpenter returned to low budget filmmaking. For Alive Films–and distributed through Universal, back in the Carpenter business following the failures of The Thing and Halloween III–Carpenter wrote and directed Prince of Darkness and They Live. His last two films of the eighties, the Alive Duet turn out the lights on the first half of Carpenter’s career while foreshadowing the second half.

Prince of Darkness is particularly notable as it brings back Donald Pleasance, who last worked with Carpenter on Halloween II (which Carpenter wrote and produced, but did not direct) six years before. Pleasance’s presence gives the film a very familiar feeling–he even has the same name as his Halloween character. So Prince of Darkness is visibly Carpenter, not studio Carpenter and not seventies Carpenter, but a somewhat pulpy one. Gary B. Kibbe’s photography on Prince of Darkness is muted, mundane. There’s no glamour to Prince of Darkness, so Carpenter’s able to get away with that lower budget. He’s still thinking about how to best connect with the viewer. What’s too much–and Prince of Darkness gets wackier than any other Carpenter script–and what’s acceptable. The film also returns Carpenter to his closed locations and limited cast members–they’re being held hostage by Satan slime. Dennis Dun and Victor Wong are the only other returning Carpenter players–they’re back from Big Trouble–but Peter Jason does start his run for most often cast in a John Carpenter film award. He’s got five, all theatrical, unlike Charles Cyphers who has four theatrical and two television movies.

Oddly enough, Prince of Darkness would have been one of my first John Carpenter movies growing up. It was on cable a lot; on one of the movie channels. We didn’t have cable yet, but I did see it around. I’ve got a lot more respect for it today than I ever did as a kid. The pan and scan wouldn’t have helped, but you also need a certain intellectual detachment with Prince of Darkness and I wouldn’t have had it as a kid.

Prince of Darkness got a relatively early DVD release–2000–back when Image was releasing Universal’s catalog. And people finally got to see it widescreen. Universal had pan and scanned the LaserDisc in 1988. The film’s ridden a tide of casual affection–there’s a nice blu-ray special edition and everything. It’s actually rather surprisingly because I distinctly remember it being bandied about as an example of the new depths of Donald Pleasance’s career at the time. Of course I was a kid, but I feel like I paid attention to it enough. People didn’t like back to low budgets Carpenter, not on Prince of Darkness. Maybe because Jesus is a space alien too; just saying.

So while Prince of Darkness didn’t inspire a new generation of Carpenter fan, the next one did. People loved They Live, kids, adults, whatever. Guys. Let’s be clear. Always guys, but the strangest and widest variety of them. Something about Rowdy Roddy Piper in what otherwise would’ve been a Kurt Russell role, finding out the world’s being taken over by space aliens, running out of bubble gum. It’s a lot. And Meg Foster’s in it. Meg Foster was in a certain type of movie in the eighties–genre crap, basically; at the time, They Live fit into an existing genre, something Carpenter was never comfortable doing before. The more he tried, the more he failed. Except with They Live, because he didn’t take it seriously.

He brings back Peter Jason from Prince of Darkness, Keith David from The Thing, and George ‘Buck’ Flower from–wait, George ‘Buck’ Flower is in five theatricals. Sorry Peter Jason, you lose. Anyway, some of They Live feels like it’d pair well with another Carpenter movie or pretty much anything else. It’s accessible and iconic, but it’s also occasionally lazy and not imaginatively done enough from Carpenter. His direction is perfunctory, maybe because he doesn’t have an actor to connect with. Piper’s not good enough, Foster (in the Laurie Zimmer part) is underwritten and underperformed; maybe Keith David? But the writing isn’t there.

They Live also didn’t get a letterbox release until DVD. It too was an Image Entertainment release when they had the Universal license; it came out the same day as Prince of Darkness actually. Since then it’s had rereleases and special features and a blu-ray or two. It’s become a film people have seen, which wasn’t always the case. It’s easily Carpenter’s most referenced film in pop culture; I mean, the video game Duke Nukem just ripped off all Piper’s lines but no one really realized it for a few years because the Internet was smaller back then.

After They Live in 1988, it’d be another four years before Carpenter made another film and another thirteen before he’d make one better than They Live. They’re the last of many things in Carpenter’s filmography. The last Alan Howarth collaboration, the last time Larry J. Franco is producing; they’d both been around since Escape from New York. It was the end of the archetypes Carpenter had been working with since he started–no more Laurie Zimmers, no more Snake Plisskens (not even when Snake Plissken would come back). It’d be a heck of a lot less depressing if They Live didn’t have a weak final third, because in context, the Alive Duet feel more like defeat than anything else. Carpenter tried, it didn’t work. And when he returned after four years, there’d never be any real expectation again when you saw the preview for John Carpenter’s Memoirs in the Mouth of Damned Mars Vampires.

---

RELATED

• John Carpenter, Part 1: The Wonder Years
• John Carpenter, Part 2: The Studio Quartet
• John Carpenter, Part 4: The Mundane Years

The movie poster for Superman and the Mole-Men proclaims the film to be “the all-time ace of action in his first full-length feature adventure.” That “all-time ace of action” is Superman. 1951 moviegoers–sure, children moviegoers, but moviegoers nonetheless–had been waiting lifetimes for Superman’s first full-length feature adventure.

When Mole Men came out in November 1951, Superman–the character–was thirteen years old and already diversified media. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s first Superman comic book story is April 1938. Starting in February 1940, there is a Superman radio show. It runs eleven years. Starting September 1941, there are Superman cartoons playing in theaters, using the voice of the radio Superman. The cartoons go until mid–1943. Then there’s finally a live action Superman in 1948, with a Columbia Superman serial, which is so popular it gets a 1950 sequel, Atom Man vs. Superman. The only reason the serial took so long to make because the rights were at Paramount for the cartoons. Columbia wanted a live action Superman in 1940.

And then, on November 23, 1951, mankind is introduced to the all-time ace of action in his first full-length feature adventure.

Of course, Superman and the Mole-Men only runs fifty-eight minutes and is a pilot for the “Adventures of Superman” TV show, but it’s technically a full-length feature adventure.

The story has Clark Kent and Lois Lane dispatched to the small town of Silsby to cover the world’s deepest oil well. Big stories for Kent and Lane in this one. The mole men appear. The townsfolk want to kill them. Superman has to save them, but Superman also has to talk the townsfolk down as opposed to directly intervening. It’s more super-y that way.

As an hour-long pilot for a kids show, Mole-Men ought to be a lot more fun. Instead, it combines this depressing look at xenophobia with a preachy Superman. With not enough money–especially on the mole men costumes, which are absurd–and not enough Lois Lane. Except Phyllis Coates isn’t good as Lane, so it’s fine. As Superman and Clark Kent, George Reeves is uneven but earnest.

Superman and the Mole-Men was a success–Reeves appeared in the “Adventures of Superman” from 1952 to 1958. Coates came along for the first season, with Noel Neill returning to play Lane in the second two seasons. She had played Lois Lane in both serials. Mole-Men has been on home video since 1988, with occasional temporary unavailability, but it’s a curiosity more than anything else.

After “Adventures” ended, there was a brief Superman drought. Then the show went into syndicated reruns in 1965 and, starting in 1966, Superman got some new adventures, once again on television, this time animated. Between the “Adventures” reruns and the cartoons, which appeared with other superhero cartoons in various combinations on Saturday mornings, Superman remained a regular fixture on the television screen.

Then in December 1978, the all-time ace of action returned for his second full-length feature adventure. And, this time, Superman is not just for kids. It was seventies, after all; everyone had to believe he could fly.

Superman–marketed as Superman: The Movie so everyone would know it was a movie and not another TV show–features an all-star cast, phenomenal special effects, and a script ostensibly from Godfather author Mario Puzo. Often in their full-length feature adventure debuts, the film casts major stars (from multiple eras) as the Superman supporting cast–Marlon Brando as his Kryptonian dad, Glenn Ford as his Earth dad, Gene Hackman as nemesis Lex Luthor, Jackie Cooper as Daily Planet editor Perry White, and so on. Superman himself doesn’t get a name actor, rather newcomer Christopher Reeve in the role. Margot Kidder, who had more experience than Reeve but wasn’t a star, plays Lois Lane.

In addition to covering the destruction of Krypton and Superman’s Earthbound growing pains, there’s lightly romantic camaraderie for Kidder and Reeve, and appropriately cinematic villainy from Hackman. Disasters, crises, and super-heroics abound.

While Superman, The Movie, has great production values, great special effects, and a solid script (from Puzo, three cowriters, and one “creative consultant”), it’s Reeve who makes it work. Well, Reeve and director Richard Donner. They both approach the film earnestly, which isn’t easy given its spectacular scale. The film’s full of delightful, rich performances, something Donner doesn’t forget when it comes time for action. The human factor is the heart of Superman.

Superman was one of 1978’s biggest hits and Reeve became at least one generation’s Man of Steel (no idea why all-time ace of action hadn’t stuck). While the film came just as Hollywood was discovering special effects, it wasn’t “Hollywood,” it was Euro producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind, which sets the film and resulting franchise apart from the traditional late seventies, early eighties “blockbuster” narrative. Their producing hijinks, which got the film (and a couple sequels) made, alienated cast and crew alike.

Director Donner didn’t get along with the Salkinds, leading to his firing from the franchise; the resulting strain meant Donner didn’t really get involved with Superman on home video until DVD. Warner Bros. wasn’t exactly into deep catalog special editions on LaserDisc, anyway, though Superman did have a fine letterboxed release. When Donner came back to do a special edition, he even did a director’s cut, featuring all sorts of cool, rare superfluous footage.

Superman was one of Warner Bros.’s first big special edition DVD releases. Albeit in a snap case. The special edition had some ups and downs before they got it right; they eventually put out a fantastic series box set on DVD and blu-ray.

The original plan for Superman II–going back to before the first film went into production–was to shoot the films back-to-back. After firing Donner (who shot some significant percentage of II), the Salkinds brought in Richard Lester to finish it up. They chucked enough Donner footage to appease the Directors Guild and reshot with Lester. They also to come up with an ending.

Superman II involves three Kryptonian supervillains (introduced briefly in the first film) coming to Earth and taking over the planet while Kidder and Reeve are giving in to their earthly desires. Hackman’s back (though he refused to reshoot scenes for Lester), second-fiddle to the superpowered bad guys, along with most of the first film’s supporting cast. Much of the crew returns as well.

Of course, Donner isn’t back and neither is composer John Williams. Lester does an okay enough job directing–it helps he’s got Reeve and Kidder–and Ken Thorne does well mixing and expanding various John Williams themes from the first movie. In all, Superman II is a problematic superhero sequel, but still a successful one. It can’t compete with the first film and struggles not to try; some problems come from that lack of competition. There’s some really nice material for the supporting cast, even if the villains are uneven.

For most of its post-release “shelf life,” Superman II was neglected on home video. It didn’t even get a letterboxed LaserDisc release until the late nineties. It was remembered mostly for the Metropolis street fight sequence, but also for the rumors of the lost Donner footage. Kidder talked a lot about Donner’s removal from the sequel over the years (enough the third film shipped Lois offscreen to Bermuda); Donner didn’t comment at length; interested, enthusiastic fans didn’t give up.

In early 2005, after a global scouring for footage, the fan-created “restored international cut” appeared. It got a lot of notice, including Entertainment Weekly covering it, and was freely available through snail mail trading until Warner Bros. shut it down. Twenty-five years after Superman II first arrived, people finally got a look at what could have been.

Like the Arctic Police arresting the Kryptionian villains and Lex trying to work a deal with Superman while getting hauled off.

But the renewed interest did lead to Donner finally getting a crack at his own Superman II cut, which Warner released alongside (and as part of) their Christopher Reeve Superman box set. Donner’s version of the film pulls as much Lester footage as possible and gets back in some Marlon Brando, but it’s a complete mess. Whatever is wrong with Superman II, there’s clearly no way to fix it in post-production.

After three years–two in the U.S., where got II later than overseas–Reeve and Lester were back for Superman III. No Puzo script; instead, I and II cowriters David and Leslie Newman fly solo. This time, Reeve’s splitting his time between big business computer age villains and gently romancing childhood crush Annette O’Toole. The main protagonist ends up being “villain” Richard Pryor, a regular Metropolis guy who slapsticks his way into the villains’ cabal.

Despite excellent production values, Superman III is a rather weak outing for the Man of Steel. Even with strong performances–Reeve, O’Toole, Pryor–there’s just nothing to be done with the Newmans’ script. Lester’s direction is all right, if uneven. Robert Paynter’s cinematography is weak–he shot II to match the Donner footage and, free of those constraints, he’s got no good ideas. It could be a lot worse, though. A lot worse. Even with Pryor skiing off a skyscraper.

Superman III opened strong in summer 1983 and the bad word of mouth immediately slowed it down. It has some notoriety as the “Superman with Richard Pryor” but it’s a PG Richard Pryor and no one cares about PG Richard Pryor. Much like the Metropolis street battle set piece from II, the nonsensical Superman vs. Clark Kent junkyard battle from III gets quite a bit of sympathy. Warner released Superman III letterboxed on LaserDisc alongside Superman II in the nineties; they’ve kept DVD (and blu-ray) releases in print, including a special edition. However, even though a longer television version of Superman III exists, Warner hasn’t released an extended version.

After Superman III‘s failure, the franchise seemed in dire straits. Christopher Reeve dropped out of the Salkinds’ Supergirl: The Movie, making it less a spin-off and more a “sidequel.” When Supergirl bombed, the Salkinds sold off their Superman movie rights to Cannon Films. And what did Cannon do with those rights?

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Released in 1987, with a politically conscious message (Christopher Reeve’s idea) about Superman getting involved with the nuclear arms race. Lex Luthor sees his opportunity to profit from it, which eventually leads to him creating a Superman clone who looks nothing like Superman–The Nuclear Man. Meanwhile, Mariel Hemingway has a crush on Clark Kent, leading to hijinks as the film also brings back Superman and Lois Lane romantic moments. Everyone returns for The Quest for Peace. Reeve, Hackman, Kidder, Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure–and Susannah York even audibly returns (providing voiceover). There’s no technical crossover–new director (Sidney J. Furie), new screenwriters, new special effects crew. But the cast is there.

And, despite their collective presence, the film’s a wreck. The script’s terrible, the special effects are bad, the production values are exceptionally low (thanks, Cannon). There’s some residual charm thanks to Reeve, Kidder, and Hackman (and Cooper and McClure), not to mention actual hints at character development, but it’s a wreck. It’s not even entirely Sidney J. Furie’s fault.

Superman IV bombed. Worse than Superman III. It doesn’t have a reputation as much besides a bad late eighties sequel whose predecessors have a far better pedigree. Not even the presence of Jon Cryer could get audiences into the seats. The film does have its best release–after years of Warner ignoring it (Quest for Peace didn’t get a late nineties letterboxed LaserDisc for example), they finally put it out on DVD and blu-ray. It looks fine. It doesn’t have the legendary (and apparently missing) extra forty-five minutes of footage, which included another “Nuclear Man” villain for Superman to battle. It seems unlikely that footage will ever surface (or if it’d be any help if it did).

While Superman III couldn’t quite ruin the Superman franchise, Superman IV did the trick. The Man of Steel disappeared for a while, though the Boy of Steel did show up after a couple years. The Salkinds put together a syndicated “Superboy” TV series, which lasted it four seasons. A year later, “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” launched on ABC. It lasted four seasons as well. Towards the end of “Lois & Clark”’s run, “Superman: The Animated Series” started its three season run. Film success remained illusive, but the all-time ace of action did all right on television.

The nineties also had the failed development of a Superman Lives project, which was supposed to star Nicolas Cage as Superman, directed by Tim Burton. It was a big, splashy failure for Warner Bros., who still hadn’t gotten their own Superman film off the ground. Before, it had taken the Salkinds and Cannon to get it done.

The property didn’t stay dormant–TV had “Smallville,” the adventures of teenage Clark Kent (before Superman and never Superboy), which ran ten seasons starting in 2001. In the middle of the “Smallville” run–after nineteen years away–Superman got his sixth full-length feature adventure.

In 2006 (after another failed reboot attempt a few years earlier), Superman Returns didn’t just bring the Man of Steel back to the big screen, it did so in “semi-sequel” to the Christopher Reeve series (ignoring III and IV). No one from those films returned except the now deceased Marlon Brando, whose unused footage from the first film was CG’ed to match.

The film, which Warner Bros. co-financed with Legendary Pictures (so they still hadn’t made their own Superman movie), has Superman returning to Earth after an absence (though, sadly, not the one mentioned in Supergirl). He comes back to Lex Luthor ready to terrorize and Lois Lane, who’s now a single mom to a precious child with a mysterious father, not so happy to see him. She’s also got a new boyfriend. Meanwhile, Clark Kent also has to get back into the Metropolis groove.

Bryan Singer, fresh from X-Men success, directs Superman Returns preciously. It’s a big production, with fantastic special effects. It’s a shame the script sort of just keeps going and going and going. And just not at the end, but starting pretty early on, since the filmmakers know they’re playing with audience expectations. Brandon Routh makes does a fine job in the “lead” (Singer doesn’t trust him as Superman, just Clark), with Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth barely adequate as Luthor and Lane, respectively. James Marsden is awesome as Lois’s new fiancé, who–unfortunately for the film–turns out to be more of a hero than Superman.

Saddled with the pre-production costs of the failed reboots in its budget, Superman Returns had a big hill to climb to success. The film, while critically well-received (enough) and commercially viable, wasn’t a runaway success. While audiences were somewhat sympathetic to the film, they didn’t seem to like the idea of it being a sequel to the Reeve movies. And they really didn’t like Superman being a deadbeat dad. Everyone apparently lost interest in a sequel–Warner Bros., Legendary, even Bryan Singer. Returns has been well-represented on DVD and blu-ray (even HD-DVD), though Singer never did go back and reincorporate the footage he had to cut for time. Running two and a half hours, Singer apparently wanted it to go even longer.

When Superman Returns came out, Warner Bros. had just relaunched their Batman franchise; the second film in the “Dark Knight trilogy,” titled The Dark Knight–Singer’s sequel was going to be called The Man of Steel–came out in 2008 and made a billion dollars and got great reviews. A Writers Guild strike slowed and stopped a Justice League film–which would have featured a different Superman (and Batman)–and then Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan supposedly asked Warner to pause everything superhero until he finished his trilogy. Given the billion dollar box office on Dark Knight, Warner acceded to that (supposed) request, with a couple notable box office bombs as exceptions.

And when Superman came back again, Nolan was in the producer’s seat. Seven years after Superman Returns, The Man of Steel finally came out. Only it was all new, not in the Returns or Reeve continuity. It was also the first time one of the all-time ace of action’s full-length features leveraged the wealth of DC Comics source material. Man of Steel is an origin story, reintroducing Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and the entire supporting cast with details, scenes, and dialogue out of the comics. Just after Clark Kent becomes Superman (or gets the costume at least), Kryptonian menace Zod tracks him down and wages war on the entire planet. It’s Superman meets tentpole “hard sci-fi.”

Man of Steel is a success. New Superman Henry Cavill is great, Amy Adams is great as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon is phenomenal as Zod. The supporting cast isn’t showy, but they do fine work. Director Zach Snyder ably handles the special effects action and the character relationships. Shannon and Cavill play wonderfully together, for example, and Cavill and Adams have immediate chemistry. And Hans Zimmer–not borrowing at all on the John Williams music, which Returns did for half its runtime then stopped–turns in an excellent score.

But Man of Steel didn’t get the box office returns Warner (and Legendary, presumably) were expecting. Warner Bros. had already lost the lead in the superhero movie game and the film didn’t help them catch up. It was too serious, too dark; audiences apparently didn’t like it being so different from the Christopher Reeve movies (the opposite of their complaints following Returns) and critics felt about the same. Once again, the future of the franchise was seemingly in jeopardy after a single outing.

So Warner (and Snyder) made some changes. Behind the camera, they got rid of Legendary as co-financiers, meaning the subsequent sequel would be Warner’s first outing as sole Superman proprietor, and Christopher Nolan decided he had zero interest in producing further entries.

Three years after Man of Steel–and almost a full year after post-production had completed–Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice came out. Before the Tim Burton and Nicolas Cage failure, there had been rumors of a Batman/Superman team-up movie (or at least a script someone liked). Finally, the two DC superheroes met on the big screen, simultaneously infusing the unsteady Superman franchise with the popular Batman brand and relaunching that brand, which was in need of an all-new big screen Batman.

And Superman doesn’t just have to fight Batman. He also has a Lex Luthor stirring up trouble–tech billionaire Luthor doesn’t like Superman’s super-heroics much. Neither does Batman. Lois Lane still likes him though. Who knows what could’ve happened if Snyder hadn’t shoehorned Wonder Woman into the action too.

In addition to having a clumsy, awkward jumble of a title, Dawn of Justice is clumsy, awkward jumble of a film as well. Cavill and Adams do pretty well, new Batman Ben Affleck is fine, new Lex Luthor Jesse Eisenberg does all right, but the script’s a combination of bad pacing and dumb ideas. It’s a really long, mostly unpleasant movie–with an atrocious “third act.” The character sensitivity Snyder brought to the previous film is entirely missing, though last time he had a script from David S. Goyer and not an ineptly pretentious one from Chris Terio. It’s a major misfire.

While a big box office success, Dawn of Justice got mostly terrible reviews and indifferent (or worse) audience reaction. Unlike previous critical “Super-flops,” Warner Bros. seems more than confident in keeping the franchise going. At least to some degree. There might not be more Man of Steel sequels, but Cavill (and Adams so far) will pop up in future Warner Bros. superhero movies. Actually, Superman has very little to do in Dawn of Justice, most of the hubbub and attention goes to Affleck’s brooding Batman.

It makes Superman’s second-billing in that terrible title even more appropriate. Kind of an inverted Larry Talbot situation.

Warner released an even longer version of Dawn of Justice, which gives Cavill and Adams a lot more to do–the first half of the movie focuses on Lois and Clark reporting instead of just guest-starring in a Batman movie with some Lex Luthor political corrupting antics thrown in. Unfortunately, that better Superman movie still has all the clunkiness of the final hour fight sequence. It’s actually a worse film overall, just with better parts. The failed potential stings even more.

So the future of the Superman franchise is unsure. It’s always unsure. But the movies are occasionally outstanding, often all right, and rarely truly godawful. The all-time ace of action is worth the risk.

In the summer of 2008, Matthew Hurwitz (of DangerBurger and Video Fugue previously of Cinemachine) and I launched An Alan Smithee Podcast. Just under six years later, we released the final, one hundredth episode.

The podcast started as a general discussion of modern film, but soon became a targeted discussion of two films, one good, one bad. Only they were not necessarily films we thought good or bad. Good consensus, bad consensus. Sometimes the bad films were the ones we liked, sometimes not. Sometimes we didn’t like either of them. Only later did we even relent to the common sense of pairing the films thematically.

Until now, all of the episodes have been available on iTunes or through MP3 links on the Alan Smithee website. There has been some renewed interest in the podcast of late, with people finding the episodes linked from who knows where. Matt and I thought instead of letting people stumble onto the podcast, perhaps we should offer some structure.

That structure is The Best of An Alan Smithee Podcast, presented here on The Stop Button, every Monday for 30 weeks as we revisit 30 of our favorite episodes.

If you missed these the first time around, now begins your second chance to take a listen. And you should listen. Matt and I are smart fellas.

---

Listen On

---

Cover Gallery

When talking about Dekalog, three things are going to come up. Religion in film (I’m listening to The Blessed Islands to get in the mood), Mannequin (you know, “Switcher!”), and Dekalog.

Since Dekalog is ten modern tales of the Ten Commandments–the director, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and his cowriter, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, mix various commandments in each episode. I’m hesitant to read too much about Kieslowski and Dekalog because it seems like if I was so interested in his story, I would’ve read it years ago, when I first heard about the film and thought I should see it. Dekalog is out on video–VHS, now DVD–in the United States from Facets. Facets is a Chicago film non-profit joint–and also video store–I heard at length growing up in the Chicago area.

I don’t think I ever went to the store. Maybe once. But probably not.

Facets released Dekalog in 1999–I remember my fellow video store clerks salivating over it, but I don’t know if any of us actually watched it. I know I didn’t. Before the VHS release, I think it played at the Music Box Theatre; I knew about it enough to know the VHS release was a big deal. Roger Ebert loved Dekalog. So, apparently, did Stanley Kubrick.

I don’t get it. I’ve seen all ten episodes. I don’t get it.

I have no idea how to talk about Dekalog; I wrote about each individual episode separately. I rolled my eyes at the returning character throughout the films–this guy who sometimes shows up to watch the characters as they go about doing something they shouldn’t, whether committing adultery or liking their computers too much. But he’s not in every episode. So some commandment breaking is worth witnessing and some isn’t.

In the second episode, the lead of the first shows up for a second. Then, later on in the series, one episode mentions the events in another. How do the new episodes characters know about it? Because everyone knows everything, it’s a “small” huge city. A lot of the episodes take place in the same housing complex, but Kieslowski doesn’t do anything with it.

So what makes Dekalog so significant? Film critics spent the nineties blathering about Kieslowski, who’s been forgotten since Miramax can’t try to get any more Best Foreign Picture Oscars (Kieslowski passed away back in the mid-nineties). In the great information transfer from film snobbery to Internet film enthusiasm, Kieslowski and Dekalog mostly got left behind. It’s not like Facets is Criterion, after all. They aren’t the brand of usually accessible, but still somewhat elite, films.

Criterion’s about a wide audience. Facets doesn’t seem to care. Or at least it didn’t when I was a teenager. But it doesn’t matter; Dekalog has always been presented towards a wider audience. Ebert championed it, after all.

Dekalog raises a significant question about film. Is being about religiousness enough for something to be “good” or “significant.” Kieslowski’s not good at it–the exploration of the Commandments and so on. The writers are sensational and often let that sensationalism get in the way of the reality of the story. The first episode has a home automation computer–running BASIC–more advanced than anything you can get now. Kieslowski just wants to crap on technology and figures his audience doesn’t include anyone knowledgable about computers, which might not have been a lot of people in 1989 Poland, but still. It’s goofy.

However, I’m not religious. I haven’t seen The Ten Commandments since a Thanksgiving long ago. Is it even Thanksgiving? See? Not religious. Should me not being religious affect how I perceive Dekalog? No. It’s about people. It’s made by people, it’s about people. It’s about dumb people, it’s about obvious people, it’s about unbelievable people.

Is it ever about real people? Kieslowski puts his actors through such narrative hoops, it rarely feels honest. The manipulation is incredible. Here’s where if I wanted to spend the time, I could look up other reviews of Dekalog and talk about them. But this post is already on its second draft and one of the best things about Dekalog is me being done watching it.

I picked Dekalog for The Stop Button’s tenth anniversary short film emphasis (sharing that spotlight with Jacques Tati’s short films, the silent shorts of Buster Keaton and episodes of the British anthology show, “Journey to the Unknown”) because I’d meant to see it since 1999. I’d never even gotten around to seeing Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy, even though I made a joke about it in my post on Red. The Brian Cox one. The second Brian Cox one.

Stop Button’s tenth anniversary feature emphasis involved watching a list of Movielens suggestions; on one of those preliminary suggestion lists was Kieslowski’s Red. It reminded me about Dekalog, so when I was working out a weekly short film schedule, Decalogue made it.

For short subjects–whether it’s a short film, a cartoon, an episode of an anthology television show–I use a three “star” system–“Not Recommended,” “Recommended,” “Highly Recommended.” On the site, I recommend one episode of Dekalog and highly recommend two others. So I don’t recommend seventy percent of Dekalog. Dekalog runs 572 minutes or nine and a half hours. I do almost want to marathon it just to torture myself, like as a live blogging thing but there are at least four hours in there I really never want to see again.

For a while, I thought about doing a silly trailer with clips from each episode cut together like Miramax was going to release a dubbed version. I had done similar video essays, which is what Criterion calls them–I call them “Stop Button Modells,” which no one gets–as a new feature for the tenth anniversary of the site. Then, during Eight, which is easily the best episode, I decided I wouldn’t do it without clips from all the episodes and I wouldn’t use clips from Eight because the acting is too good to put alongside the bad acting in other episodes. Eight deserves respect. Does the rest of Dekalog deserve ridicule?

Probably not more than forty-five minutes of it. Maybe fifty. Well, fifty plus almost every moment in Ten.

Movielens has a single listing for Dekalog. Not ten different parts, just one. One nine and a half hour movie. I did some fake math–the math is real but the reasoning behind how I do the math is baloney–and determined, with mathematic malarky, I would give Dekalog one and a half stars. For purposes of recording on Movielens, which I actually adjust to two and a half stars (as Movielens has five possible stars and “The Stop Button” goes to four).

Still awake? Still waiting for that Mannequin reference? How I wish there was a way to code a police officer emoji chasing a dog emoji across the screen right now. 🐶 👮

Well, here’s the Mannequin reference. I give Mannequin a star and a half. I give Mad Max 4 a star and a half. I give Starship Troopers 3 a star and a half. And, if I was going to give it anything, I’d give Dekalog a star and a half. Not really recommended, but special circumstances. When I was looking at the films I do give a star and a half, they tend to be the ones I’m most contrarian about–Oldboy, L.A. Confidential, Nightmare Alley–so Dekalog fits right in. Even though I never intended to give it a star rating.

And Dekalog shouldn’t have a star rating. It’s way too complex for a real one. Not because it’s about the Ten Commandments or because Kieslowski can get so pretentious while unable to compose for television aspect ratio, but because it’s too long. Dekalog is too long, has too many actors, to be discussed traditionally.

Hence this post having a lot of Mannequin references. In emoji. 🎈🍕

After nine and a half hours, I feel like Dekalog should have taught me something. It did make me realize film and film criticism have become lapsed Catholics (to the age of reason perhaps). But that topic’s worth real scholarship and I’m ready to be done with Dekalog.

One of the things I wanted to do with The Stop Button, way back when I started it (or, if not started it, when I realized I was going to keep going with it), was watch all the Val Lewton RKO movies.

I discovered Lewton in college. I can’t remember how, whether it was in a magazine or a book, but I got the LaserDisc box set used and wanted to dig into these noirish horror films, so unlike the Universal monster movies of the same period.

I didn’t. I think I watched I Walked with a Zombie and maybe Cat People. It took me years to get through all the films when watching them for the site too. Five years–Youth Runs Wild is a 2008 post, I Walked With a Zombie is a 2013. I distinctly remember wanting to watch the rarer Lewton. Of course, there are eleven films and two of them are rare. They’re the outliers for a variety of reasons.

I was also a big Mark Robson fan in college (I still am, I just don’t watch his movies enough anymore); he might have been how I came across the LaserDisc box set.

Robson directed six of the eleven films, including the best (The Seventh Victim) and the worst (Youth Runs Wild). Robert Wise and Jacques Tourneur handled the rest. Tourneur–and I’d discovered him late teens thanks to AMC–brought the most visual distinction to the films, even though he didn’t get the flashiest settings.

Tourneur directed the first three films–Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, The Leopard Man. Each of these films has incredible terror sequences. Tourneur, Lewton and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca figure out how to make a long walk alone the scariest thing in the world. The settings are contemporary, not classical. The possibility of horror exists in the real world.

Until college, I was also a fan of the Cat People remake. I fell out with it when I discovered the original. Having fallen out with the original, I’m back to being a fan of the remake. So when I saw the original, I could see the memorable terror sequences in their (superior) original form. I’m not a big fan of most of these films–I just don’t like most of the writing. But they’re so well-made, I’ve got a soft spot for them. None of them run over eighty minutes either, which makes them a lot more welcoming.

Cat People I watched just a couple years ago. 2013 was the year I pushed myself to get the Lewton films watched. I don’t think in preparation for anything, just because I hadn’t gotten it done (I’m similarly always trying to get Die Hard 3 watched since its the only one without a post up).

It’s really xenophobic. Cat People, not Die Hard 3 (well, maybe, I don’t remember). With old movies, there’s often some discomfort in finding the line; you have to look for it and you might really like the stars or something and there’s hesitation. You’re forcing yourself to be negative on something you like. Like when you find out, in addition to being the greatest sidekick of the 1930s and 1940s, Walter Brennan was also a racist.

But Cat People’s xenophobia gets in the way of the story. It clouds the screenwriters, it modifies the film’s potential. Knee caps it. There’s a lack of empathy and it hurts. Now, I’d seen Curse of the Cat People first–and it was rarer than even Cat People back in the eighties and nineties (I’d read about them all in the Maltin guide, I’m sure). I loved Curse of the Cat People when I saw it just after high school. It got me interested in Robert Wise movies.

So when I watched Cat People in February 2013, I hadn’t seen Curse again yet. I still assumed Curse was going to be amazing. I was still hopeful. I just wish I remember where I read about the Lewton films back in 2002 or so. Maybe there was an article in “Films of the Golden Age” but I remember a lot of details about the individual projects.

I Walked With a Zombie, which is Jane Eyre on a sugar plantation with zombies (voodoo zombies), has a bunch of great stuff in it too. My wife and I definitely watched it back in college; I had a lot better memories of it than it comes across. Discovering these films in college, seeing this level of visual craftsmanship–in a low budget picture (seventies John Carpenter and RKO Val Lewton go hand in hand)–is exciting. It’s still exciting now, but now I also see the narrative problems.

I’ll want to see one of them again–The Ghost Ship, The Leopard Man–just because they look so great. Leopard Man takes place in a small Southwestern town and they do a fantastic job with it. Ghost Ship’s on, well, a ship and it gets a lot of visual mileage from that setting. The Lewton pictures have particular personalities to them thanks to the visuals. Frightening, intriguing ones. The movies never get too discomforting you can’t enjoy their production values, even while they’re trying to terrify you.

The last three Lewtons are period pictures–though Mademoiselle Fifi is too. I had originally planned on splitting off the period pictures from the rest but Youth Runs Wild gets in the way. It’s the only Lewton-produced picture I don’t have any interest in seeing again. It got all cut up by the studio and what remains isn’t worth talking about. Though a teen picture is a hard proposition anyway.

Boris Karloff stars in the last three pictures–The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead, Bedlam. They’re often creepy. Lewton goes for the jugular on the concepts–grave robbing, false imprisonment in an insane asylum, possession. I think I’d seen Bedlam before, like on AMC, and it still creeped me out. These films were about people who could identify their fears and voice them, preparing the viewer for what was to come.

I think I’d stopped being such a big Karloff fan by college and never had much interest in these final three films. Isle of the Dead is pretty darn good, however. I guess Robson made the two best Lewton films (Dead and Victim). Period pieces were a hard sell for me. They still are. Karloff also has a big onscreen personality; I was worried how the films would deal with it. It seemed gimmicky–horror star Karloff and horror producer Lewton teaming up.

When I did get to Bedlam, however, I had a lot of hope for it. Isle of the Dead had gotten me optimistic. There’s an excitement in the Robson pictures not present in the Robert Wise entries. It’s like Wise knew he was on his way into non-genre pictures but Robson didn’t mind playing in the category. But the Wise ones, even though I don’t have much nostalgia for them, are pretty good films.

Except Curse of the Cat People. That one’s a real disappointment. Especially since I’d loved it so much when I first saw it; I was still in that period when I’d blather on to people about films I’d seen (which actually did stop before the site came around) and I know I talked about Curse nonstop for a day or two.

The Lewton films still have that excitement factor for me. Even I gave most of them ★★, they’re important American films. Some of the excitement might still have to do with them going so long unseen but talked about. Cat People airing on the local PBS station was a cause for videotape planning in the early nineties; people made sure someone (or two or three) was taping it so they could borrow it.

And there’s still Lewton excitement online, which is cool. There was excitement back when the DVD boxset got released in 2005 (which made that LaserDisc box set purchase in 2002 a bit of a waste). The intensity’s changed, but the films availability have made it–for the first time in the films’ seventy year history–easy to see them. Except Fifi and Youth. Those two films are still difficult to see (though PAL DVDs have been released).

Lewton’s films are problematic but it’s impossible not to be a Lewton aficionado.

I grew up avoiding Eleanor Parker movies. At least the one everyone knew about–my mom and my sister used to watch The Sound of Music all the time. My dad and I avoided it for years. When I did discover Eleanor Parker in the late nineties, I can’t remember the order in which I saw her films. I know I ordered a bunch of LaserDiscs from Ken Crane’s, including The Sound of Music, but I can’t remember the viewing order.

But Scaramouche would have been one of the early ones I saw. I’ve always loved Scaramouche; given I remember seeing it multiple times before “The Stop Button” (and once since), I almost think I saw it first on VHS and then on the MGM LaserDisc. I distinctly remember not getting the out of print Criterion Scaramouche.

Growing up, about the only fifties movies I saw were Universal sci-fi pictures and maybe some Hitchcock, so Scaramouche was a revelation. It’s visually lush but also sincere and thoughtful in its storytelling. It trusts its audience.

I first learned about Eleanor Parker in an article in a magazine called “Films of the Golden Age.” The article had a lengthy discussion of her career, so I knew she started in the forties with Warner Bros., but her most easily accessible (save Sound of Music) films were her MGM films from the 1950s. They were big enough pictures to get VHS releases and often LaserDisc ones.

Above and Beyond was readily available on VHS. It had a painted cover, so it wasn’t a quick MGM/UA classics release. They didn’t really have those with VHS releases; I don’t think any big studios got around to releasing EP copies of stuff. Well, maybe Orion Home Video did.. I know I saw it relatively soon. It’s now out from Warner Archive. I’ve seen it at least three times. It’s diametrically opposed from Scaramouche. It’s not lush, though it is still bright. It’s dark, it’s depressing, it’s not playful. I’d only seen fifties melodramas, usually from Universal (on pre-commercials AMC) so Above and Beyond was a surprise. I’ve seen it get some gruff over the years (at least people are seeing it), but it’s a fantastic film.

I remember both Escape from Fort Bravo and Valley of the Kings being rather easy to find. There were VHS releases of both and maybe a LaserDisc release of Fort Bravo. I went with the VHS on it because I was under the impression the film was 1.37:1, though it was actually an early 1.66:1. The LaserDisc wasn’t 1.66:1 so I was fine. It’s since come out on DVD widescreen.

Fort Bravo is another awesome film; it got me on a John Sturges kick (which Magnificent Seven ended–Seven always ends my Sturges kicks). William Holden, discovering John Forsythe wasn’t always a cheesy nighttime soap opera star. Fort Bravo’s got a complex, strong story. It’s beautifully paced. By college, I had seen a number of Westerns (thanks AMC), but when I saw Fort Bravo I had probably only seen the Leone Dollars trilogy. I was not a Western fan. I was very hesitant towards the genre. Fort Bravo, with its strong character development, changed my mind on the subject. It’s also about the only calvary movie I’ve ever seen I can tolerate.

Valley of the Kings, even though it’s got Parker and Robert Taylor–and even though I was forgiving of the film the first time I saw it (maybe the first two times)–is fairly awful stuff. It’s the bad fifties melodrama just with a good pair of leads. I remember that “Films of the Golden Age” article being gently disparaging to it and I responded similarly. The last time I saw it, however… well, it is (I think) the only Eleanor Parker movie made after 1950 with a single ★ rating.

After Valley of the Kings came Many Rivers to Cross, the last of Parker and Taylor’s films together. It’s also sort of the peak of Parker’s MGM career as a leading lady. There’s no real hook to it–it’s a frontier “Northwestern” adventure comedy–besides its cast. It’s okay enough. It took me forever to track it down because TCM stubbornly refused to air it for a few years. I remember having a letterbox recording of it until the film got released on DVD, rather soon considering neither Eleanor Parker or Robert Taylor have modern fan followings. It was when Warner was doing amazing releases just because they could.

Parker’s next film in the fifties for MGM was Interrupted Melody, which featured greatly into the article in “Films of the Golden Age” and could very well be the first Parker film I saw. MGM had a beautiful LaserDisc release of the film. I don’t know if I’d seen much Glenn Ford at that time; I do remember Roger Moore being a bit of a surprise.

Melody is a fantastic film. I sort of remember having it on VHS, but I might just be remembering the video store having it on VHS and me putting it on my recommendations shelf. I can’t imagine seeing the film pan and scan, it’s such gorgeous widescreen. I would have avoided Melody earlier because of the singing. Luckily I’d gotten over the “no musicals” hurdle of my film viewing.

I’ve read Woman of a Thousand Faces, Doug McClelland’s book about Parker–I think I read it while still seeing her films–so if something significant happened after Interrupted Melody, it seems like it’d be reported in that book. I think I have it out of storage. But even without the book, it’s clear MGM stopped giving Parker such high profile roles, which is kind of dumb (Melody was her last, of three, best actress nominations–she lost to Anna Magnani, who I don’t think I’ve ever seen in anything).

The “Films of the Golden Age” article was complementary about Lizzie, Parker’s multiple personality thriller. It took me years to see it (I think TCM just aired it one day, not part of a Parker marathon) and it didn’t impress. It’s the only film I haven’t seen since starting “The Stop Button;” Warner Archive has never gotten around to it.

They also haven’t gotten around to The Seventh Sin, which is one of those “too late” movies. It’s Eleanor Parker and George Sanders finally doing a movie together, after their “primes.” It’s good too. I just read David Lewis crap-mouthing it in his memoirs, but it’s good. It’s a Maugham adaptation. It’s far from perfect, but Parker and Sanders in a Maugham adaptation? No one can mess that one up.

Sadly, the film’s not available widescreen anywhere. TCM still airs a pan and scan print. It was apparently a big bomb for MGM back in the fifties and Sanders is a weird draw. He has a very solid modern fanbase, but not a wide one. It’s focused.

It’d be very cool to see it OAR.

The last Parker MGM film–ever, actually–is Home from the Hill. I saw Home from the Hill really early on too, just because MGM had a nice LaserDisc release of it. It’s since had a great DVD release, which is particularly nice for me–my LaserDisc had begun to rot by the time I transferred it onto DVD-R.

Hill was a weird film. It has Anthony Perkins, George Peppard and Robert Mitchum. Okay, Mitchum wasn’t weird to see in a film, but seeing Perkins and Peppard? It was strange. I only knew them for their crappy work. The “A-Team” is real crappy. I wasn’t even allowed to watch it because it was so dumb.

It’s a great film and was one I made people watch. It also introduced me to Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch, who wrote a number of good films.

The eight years of Parker’s MGM films–Scaramouche in 1952 to Home from the Hill in 1960–feature some of her best work, but they were also a great introduction to Hollywood filmmaking of that era.

When I first saw these films, I hadn’t seen anything like them. Going back and seeing them again over the last ten years, I still haven’t seen anything like them. There’s a distinctness to the films thanks to Parker; many of the films are beautifully made and acted by all parties, but Parker makes them all different from each other.

I have heard of Arabian Adventure, I had forgotten I knew about it when I was thinking about doing this list. Kevin Connor’s career–which has gone from British fantasy films to American television to direct-to-video to the Hallmark channel–reminds of someone like Jack Arnold, who went from Creature from the Black Lagoon to “Gilligan’s Island.” I’m sure a lot of guys who directed “The Brady Bunch” had made some decent pictures in the forties and fifties.

But I wanted to do a list about Connor after watching The People That Time Forgot again for “Stop Button Favorites.” It’s a weird series of fantasy films, most starring Doug McClure, three adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs, a few starring Peter Cushing, a few starring John Ratzenberger!

Land That Time Forgot had been my dinosaur movie as a kid, it and Planet of the Dinosaurs. Even after Jurassic Park came out, because Jurassic Park was “real” not movie fantasy. It did all the imagining for you.

Of the films on the list, I’d say Land That Time Forgot is easily the most “respectable.” It lacks the constant sexuality of People and it’s nowhere near as stupid as At the Earth’s Core. Now, Earth’s Core had Caroline Munro but she was sort of forgotten in the late eighties and early nineties. A mythic siren of PG-sexiness my generation didn’t grow up with.

And Warlords of the Deep didn’t have much U.S. distribution on home video. I’m not even sure it’s out now; I rented it (on R2) from Nicheflix the moment I could but I had never even come across it on VHS at that point and I was always on the lookout. As for Arabian Adventure, like I said, I sort of forgot about it even existing. I know I saw the seventies Sinbad movies but not much after I was seven or eight.

Goliath Awaits, the only entry on the film not a theatrical release (Goliath was a syndicated prime time miniseries), is there because it is such a perfect postscript to Connor’s other fantasy films.

John Dark produced all of Connor’s fantasy films–not Goliath–and they had a lot of similarities between them. They were period pieces. Land and People take place in the late 1910s, At the Earth’s Core is set in the Victorian era, Warlords is early 20th century (nothing too specific) and Arabian Adventure is, you know, some kind of fantasy era of Arabia. It’s not supposed to be very good; I know I have to see it now but I’m not looking forward to it.

They mixed American actors down on their luck with British actors who were just doing another gig to pay the bills. They launched no careers–unless they helped Sarah Douglas along to Superman II or Ratzenberger to “Cheers”–yet they are incredibly memorable films. Kino Lorber even got Connor to do commentary on their recent Land That Time Forgot blu-ray. It’s not a cult classic, but only because it the eighties weren’t long enough for it to catch on enough before Jurassic Park. It’s a quasi-cult classic.

And they aren’t good. Well, People That Time Forgot is good. I’d love to hear a commentary on that film to see if Connor was being stylistic or they just didn’t have the money. But the other films aren’t good. Earth’s Core and Warlords are both awful. Back when I got them all (well, I owned Land and People) and watched them one week, my friend Jim was worried I had lost my mind. “What are you doing to yourself?” he said. Later, after I saw Goliath Awaits–I had first heard about it in high school, but had not found the full length version until 2007 or so–I mailed Jim a copy immediately. Such lunacy most be shared.

Over the years, even before the site, I have reexamined the interests of my youth, or even just the films people said were good when I was a youth, and tried to be as objective as possible. Good and enjoyable aren’t the same thing. A well-made movie can be entirely unrewarding (or partially unrewarding). Navigating nostalgia and how it interacts with the viewing experience of a film is simultaneously frustrating and fun. Critical thinking can be fun. Much like talking about these Kevin Connor films.

What’s upsetting about the films, listed chronologically, is how they don’t inform one another. Connor leapfrogged. Okay Land, bad Earth’s Core, good People, bad Warlords, haven’t seen Arabian but heard it’s even worse than the bad, then underwhelming TV mini series Goliath. It’s inconsistent to say the least. It does seem, however, even though there was so much cast and crew crossover, People and Land were their own franchise. Connor and Dark and McClure’s collaboration wasn’t the franchise.

While we were recording “Alan Smithee,” Matt and I would often decide–talking about the bad movie of the episode–the story of its making would probably more interesting than the resulting film itself. We never did any of the Kevin Connor movies for an episode; we probably should have at least done one. Is there some great story behind the scenes of these films? Maybe, but I think not.

But for at least ten years, in the seventies and eighties, many of these films filled children’s minds with imagined lands and some inappropriate thoughts about cave girls. They aren’t insignificant, they shouldn’t be forgotten. I’m just not entirely sure they’re worth seeing. Other than People That Time Forgot. I think I wanted, as Matt and I were discussing what to do with “Alan Smithee” (we ended up closing it down), to try to get an interview with Sarah Douglas about her fantasy and sci-fi work as she’s now awesome on Twitter.

What do these films of Connor’s deserve now? A good book. I wish I had the time and resources to write it. I’ll have to hope to read it instead.

Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1933 film, King Kong, is one of the most popular films ever made. Besides being a box office smash on release–and then again and again on its rereleases–Kong is nearly universally praised, whether by the Library of Congress or the American Film Institute. In his first movie guide, Leonard Maltin called Kong a “moviegoing must”^[1]. The last edition of Maltin’s movie guide, has the same two sentence capsule, but in the intervening forty-six years, Maltin has added information about Kong’s remakes, restorations and colorizations. He has also included the subsequent notation–“followed immediately by The Son of Kong”^[2].

Looking at the opening credits for The Son of Kong, one sees many familiar names from King Kong, but most duos are broken up. Ruth Rose is again on screenwriting duties, but her co-writer from Kong, James Ashmore Creelman, is absent. Schoedsack is directing, but Cooper is now just executive producing. Robert Armstrong and Frank Reicher are staring again, but Son is missing Bruce Cabot and Fay Wray.

Son of Kong does not have the reputation of Kong. It currently carries a thirty-three percent critics rating at “Rotten Tomatoes” (compared to the original’s ninety-eight)^[3],[4]; the Leonard Maltin guide, in its first and final editions, awards the film ★★½^[5]. Much better than “Rotten Tomatoes” and actually quite fair. Son of Kong’s negative reputation–so infamous Peter Jackson made fun of the film in a zealous April Fools Day joke in 2005 while remaking the original–has stunted both scholarship of the film and discussion of it.

When comparing the films, star Robert Armstrong preferred Son of Kong, saying the role of Carl Denham was better in the sequel. Not sharing the screen so much with Cabot, Wray (or King Kong) meant Armstrong got “a great deal more character, swell dialogue and love scenes.”^[6]

RKO Radio Pictures started production on Son of Kong in early April, a few days before the nationwide release of King Kong^[7]. Kong had been such a success in its New York opening in March and had so impressed the studio brass, they had not just ordered the sequel, they had made Cooper the new head of production for the entire studio^[8]. Hence his inability to return to the sequel as co-director.

Cooper pitched the board a “bigger and more elaborate” sequel to Kong. He brought together Rose, Schoedsack and Willis O’Brien (who did the first film’s exceptional special effects) to put together a story in March 1933 before Rose went off to write the script. Everyone was very excited. And then the RKO board halved the budget.^[9]

Son of Kong was always going to open in the 1933 holiday season. RKO wanted a sequel when moviegoers were still excited about Kong and Cooper wanted to beat any stop motion imitations^[10]. While Cooper’s biographer Mark Cotta Vaz characterizes Cooper as disinterested in Son of Kong–Cooper, as the new head of production, ordered Son of Kong rushed and was only interested in the “bottom line” on the film, not the day-to-day progress of it^[1].

However, RKO associate producer David Lewis characterizes Cooper as much different as a production head–at least when it came to films involving Ruth Rose. Rose was married to Schoedsack and Cooper took an active interest in the production of her scripts. He brought Lewis onto another film written by Rose, Blind Adventure, to make sure it got its best possible version. That film, released in August 1933–before Son of Kong wrapped principal photography for its actors–shared a director in Schoedsack and its leads in Armstrong and Helen Mack. Cooper, as RKO head, had halted production of Son of Kong to get Blind Adventure made.^[12]

There has been very little comprehensive research on the making of Son of Kong. Most citations come from a 1992 “American Cinematographer” article, which itself largely cites a 1975 book about the making of King Kong. Both article and book have an appreciative view of the film, but both also contain a number of historical inaccuracies. Vaz’s Cooper biography, from 2005, does not suggest scholarship on the subject is improving.

But if film historians have been interested (for the most part) but unable to properly chronicle the making of Son of Kong from the generative standpoint–the film crew’s troubles and tragedies during production are relatively well-known–at least those keen scholars are head of film critics. Son of Kong’s negative reviews did not start with “Rotten Tomatoes,” they started with “The New York Times” the day after the film premiered in New York. Even though the film was a hit in 1933–not just in the United States but also internationally, including in Malaysia (Son of Kong was “one of the few Hollywood-made films depicting that part of the world that looked sufficiently authentic to be accepted” by local audiences)^[13]–it has never had a good reputation.

That bad reputation started on a very cold day in December 1933. “New York Times” film critic Andre Sennwald must have bundled up–New Yorkers were dealing with a temperature of three below zero on December 29, 1933, the coldest day in the city in thirteen years^[14]–before heading to West 50th Street to see Son of Kong at the Roxy Theatre. The next day, Sennwald reported the film was a “low melodrama,” albeit one with “loud and satisfying” laughs. He was unsure if the filmmakers had intended the humor^[15]. Given Son of Kong’s first joke–a smart one–comes at the end of the opening titles, it is hard to understand Sennwald’s confusion. If only Sennwald read the movie gossip columns of the time–writer Ruth Rose had quite intentionally and openly “expanded” the already extant comedy to “compensate” for RKO’s halving of the budget^[16].

In the first paragraph of his four paragraph review, Sennwald spoils the end of Son of Kong before going on to complain about the lack of spectacle in the film. He did report the film’s target audience–“the youngsters”–loudly enjoyed themselves during the same screening. So Son of Kong was for someone, just no one who appreciated the “mechanical ingenuity” of the original^[17].

Of course, O’Brien and his crew utilized effects techniques they discovered while making the original. Technically, they were better at their craft on Son of Kong. They just did not have the time or budget to do the type of sequences in the original.

Reading Sennwald’s review today, having just seen Son of Kong–and his sentiment the sequel is “for kids” is widely held one (if people even bother to talk about Son of Kong)–it seems as though Sennwald and other critics have, over the years, seen a much different film.

Son of Kong is a depressing journey through poverty, both domestic and foreign, in an attempt not to find fortune but to find general comfort. That “great deal more character” Armstrong talked about in reference to his role? The events of the first film have left his character in deep depression, not to mention incredible legal trouble.

The film works on two very different levels. First, the one where Schoedsack and Rose joke at the idea of making a sequel to King Kong. Whether it is bringing in the unseen map maker, revealing him a murderous, dishonest drunken coward, or just having leading lady Helen Mack have a show with a bunch of cute little monkeys, Son of Kong defies the audience to get comfortable with the film. In Armstrong’s self-loathing, the film prods the audience into accepting their culpability for watching the first film and then going to see a sequel.

The Son of Kong, in 1933, is either the first post-modern studio sequel or the first famous one. And it is entirely unappreciated for that quality. The ending of the film–the one Sennwald so pointlessly (and thoroughly) spoiled–erases the “franchise.” Schoedsack, Rose, O’Brien and Cooper send it out with a bang too–Son of Kong’s Skull Island is no longer the lost world of the original film, it is a fantasy land. As it becomes more fantastic, Armstrong becomes more human. By the end of the film, he is practically a grown-up.

Since day one, critics have tried comparing the height of Son of Kong to its “father.” The film scholarship on Son of Kong is so tepid, leading lady Helen Mack’s character does not even have an agreed upon name. Called Hilda in the opening titles, no one ever refers to Mack as anything but Helene in the picture itself. No one seemed to notice this incongruity for fifty years.

Instead of being dismissed Son of Kong (it currently enjoys less regard than Schoedsack, Rose, Armstrong and Cooper’s 1949 Mighty Joe Young), the film should be appreciated and considered for its peculiarities, its singular elements. It’s strictly on the level, even with the funny business.

---

THIS POST IS PART OF THE THE CLASSIC MOVIE HISTORY PROJECT BLOGATHON HOSTED BY FRITZI OF MOVIES SILENTLY, RUTH OF SILVER SCREENINGS AURORA OF ONCE UPON A SCREEN. SPONSORED BY FLICKER ALLEY.

---

RELATED

• THE SON OF KONG (2008 REVIEW)

---

Notes

1. Leonard Maltin, ed., TV Movies (New York: Signet, 1969), 251.
2. Leonard Maltin, ed., Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide 2015: The Modern Era (New York: Penguin, 2014), 765.
3. “Son of Kong (1933),” Rotten Tomatoes, accessed June 27, 2015.
4. “King Kong (1933),” Rotten Tomatoes, accessed June 27, 2015.
5. Maltin, Movie Guide 2015, 1309.
6. Orville Goldner and George E. Turner, The Making of King Kong: The Story Behind a Film Classic (South Brunswick, NJ: A.S. Barnes, 1975, 199-201.
7. Ray Morton, King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson (New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2005), 99.
8. Mark Cotta Vaz, Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong (New York: Villard, 2005), 234.
   
9. Morton, Movie Icon, 93-5.
10. Ibid.
11. Vaz, Living Dangerously, 248-9.
12. David Lewis, The Creative Producer, ed. James Curtis (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1993), 45-6.
    
13. Goldner and Turner, Making of King Kong, 206.
14. “Mercury 3 Below Zero, Coldest Day in 14 Years; Relief Here Due Today,” New York Times, December 30, 1933.
15. Andre D. Sennwald, “The Screen: Another Jungle Monster,” New York Times, December 30, 1933.
16. Morton, 95.
17. Sennwald, “Jungle Monster.”

When I was fifteen, it was a very good year. It was a very good year for John Carpenter fans. Maybe more than his fans, it was a very good year for his reputation. He was coming off Memoirs of an Invisible Man, his most mainstream film in eight years and it had bombed hard. But in June of 1994, when New Line Home Video released Escape From New York on LaserDisc in a collector’s edition, as well as on VHS with a “director’s special edition,” which had some of the same features. But was also pan and scan.

I was vaguely familiar with Carpenter. I had seen and liked The Thing (after years of hearing it was terrible), I had seen and liked Starman (it was a family favorite), I had seen and did not like Halloween (after years of hearing it was the only good slasher movie), I had seen and did not care for Big Trouble in Little China (if you had a friend with HBO in the late eighties, you saw Big Trouble a lot), I had seen and did not care for Memoirs of an Invisible Man. I was, in my younger days, quite the Chevy Chase fan.

One of the guys at the video store sent me home with the Escape From New York special edition VHS. I was back the next day to buy it. I think with scrounged together pennies. I made my mom and sister watch it with me either that night or immediately following. I loved Escape From New York.

And I started seeing other Carpenter films, so by October 1995, when I had moved from “special edition” VHS tapes to my own LaserDisc collection, I bought The Fog sight unseen. And I watched it. Probably twice in a row, the second time with the commentary. And it got me to appreciate Carpenter’s filmmaking. I would have shown the Fog (on LaserDisc in its glorious Panavision OAR) to my friends. I might have even made my sister watch it. I loved The Fog.

Then came Escape From L.A.. Wait, what? A fifteen years late sequel. Kurt Russell, on a second career high, got to bring back Snake Plissken. He and Carpenter palling around for the Escape From New York commentary got their wheels spinning. I saw it opening night. And I loved it, which is really embarrassing because it’s terrible.

That November–I guess Criterion couldn’t make it happen for Halloween–they released a special edition of Halloween. CAV LaserDisc. The film was now legitimized. And I’d seen it a few times. And I still didn’t like it. Whenever I finally bought the LaserDisc (not at release), I had done so for the special features. I wanted that Carpenter, Debra Hill and Jamie Lee Curtis commentary. I knew his commentary tracks were awesome.

(Halloween is still my least favorite Carpenter film of this era, even if it is better than The Fog).

In February of 1997, Image released Assault on Precinct 13, which I think I saw right away and hated the cover art for the LaserDisc. I tried transferring the commentary and effects track to Sony MiniDisc. I was a commentary fiend back then. And, of course, I loved Precinct 13.

Carpenter didn’t disappear–I couldn’t wait for Vampires, which teamed him with James Woods, another of my nineties enthusiasms–but I did have to wait. Its distribution was a nightmare of looking through “Entertainment Weekly” or maybe reading “Dark Horizons” hoping for good news. But it was a time for appreciating old Carpenter, not new.

And then, in August 1998, Universal Studios Home Video released The Thing in a Signature Collection LaserDisc release. Universal made some great LaserDiscs, but usually of popular films. The Thing had been a box office failure. But Carpenter was draw on LaserDisc–his Panavision composition can’t be pan and scanned well. All these special editions with the great commentaries would introduce Carpenter to a whole new audience–the casual home video consumer, trying out the new DVD format. All these LaserDisc special editions soon became early DVD special editions.

These films–and these LaserDisc releases–forged Carpenter’s ironclad reputation as a filmmaker. No matter how many Children of the Damned or Memoirs he made, no matter how crappy remakes of his films got, no matter how many times Anchor Bay released Halloween on DVD, Carpenter’s reputation leaped out of the hole Memoirs dug. No one liked Memoirs. Even with awesome special effects as CG-appreciation became a mainstream fixation, no one liked Memoirs. I’m sort of scared I liked Memoirs in the theater now, because I remember renting it on VHS and I have no idea why I would have done such a terrible thing.

These five Carpenter films still get all the hype–they’re still the ones in the public consciousness, whether through remakes or awesome new Shout! Factory blu-ray special editions. The commentary tracks usually make it over too, which is fantastic. Not quite the same thing as Criterion putting out Halloween and forcing it into the film enthusiast consciousness (complete with a reassuring clip of Siskel and Ebert explaining why it’s okay to like Halloween), but the content is out there for people to discover. It’s just the community isn’t there, which is too bad.

As for Carpenter, he just put out an album, Lost Themes. I love it.