Tag: Vonetta McGee

Blacula (1972, William Crain)

Blacula gets by on novelty and hero Thalmus Rasulala’s effortless charm. Rasulala is a medical examiner with the LAPD; the movie’s got a hilariously silly name for the job and department; it just means he gets to go around and flash an ID card and get things done. He’s also the only Black cop in the movie; all the rest of them, including the numerous extras, are white.

While there’s a “romance” in Blacula, Rasulala’s investigation is the main plot. Even though Vonetta McGee, as Rasulala’s girlfriend’s sister, brings Rasulala into the story, she’s going to get less and less as the film goes on. Conversely, the sister—played by Denise Nicholas—will get to go along with Rasulala on most of his vampire hunting. Including when Nicholas has a panic attack upon her first vampiric encounter, something cop Gordon Pinsent will also suffer. Only Rasulala is cool enough not to have a panic attack. Oh, and McGee. She’s fine with vampires.

William Marshall plays the title character; in the eighteenth century, African prince Marshall goes to Europe to ask Count Dracula (a bad but effective Charles Macaulay) to pledge to ending the slave trade. Macaulay responds by turning Marshall into a vampire and locking him in a coffin (where’d Macaulay get African soil? Don’t ask; barely any vampire rules here). Then Macaulay locks Marshall’s wife, also played by McGee, in a room with the coffin so she can starve to death, listening to him starve in undeath. Really, really shitty thing to do. And even though the film’s got direction problems from the start, it also gets Marshall and McGee some fast, deep sympathy.

Only when Marshall wakes up in L.A. he’s an entirely different character. I mean, he’s still in love with McGee, but he doesn’t seem phased by the two-hundred-year time difference or the reincarnated wife or being a blood-sucking vampire, killing people left and right. Plus, one of Blacula’s few vampire rules has them changing immediately, so Marshall’s putting together an undead army.

So he’s not sympathetic. Maybe if he and McGee had some great chemistry, but she’s flat in all her scenes. When she’s vaguely brainwashed, it’s okay; when she’s trying to endear her character, not so much.

McGee is a trooper, though. Director Crain shoots the film in lengthy medium shots, where the actors have to move around the frame a couple times, keep up with the camera, and do foreground and background work. Blacula’s stagy, which seems to be the curse of the vampire movie.

Crain’s also not able to do horror. He can do a little supernatural action, but only a little. Editor Allan Jacobs has some almost okay sequences, but Crain’s footage is working against him. John M. Stephens’s photography is fine, and Gene Page’s music is pretty good a third of the time, which adds up since almost every scene has background music. The best technical is easily Sandy Dvore’s playful but ominous opening titles sequence.

Marshall’s an imposing villain without being a compelling one; it works out since Blacula’s a police procedural with monsters.

There are a handful of notable bit parts. Ji-Tu Cumbuka is a lot of fun as a random friend, Emily Yancy’s good as one of the eventual vampire brides, and Elisha Cook Jr. phones in a tepid but memorable cameo.

Blacula’s got the insurmountable problem of budget and director Crain, but it’s entirely watchable with an outstanding leading man performance from Rasulala.

The Great Silence (1968, Sergio Corbucci)

The first act of The Great Silence at least implies some traditional Western tropes. Jean-Louis Trintignant is a gunslinger who fights with evil bounty hunters. Frank Wolff is the new sheriff. Klaus Kinski is one of the evil bounty hunters. Wolff’s got political stuff, or at least the script implies there’s going to be political stuff, just like the script makes implications about Trintignant and Kinski. They’re not red herrings, but director Corbucci has something to say about the Western genre and he’s getting his pieces in order.

And, frankly, that first act is a little plodding. Sure, the winter setting is cool–Corbucci has no interest in the town other than as a setting for his action, so getting to know it is a passive experience, unnecessary for the narrative but so gorgeous snow covered–and Kinski’s immediately awesome. Well, he’s immediately different. It takes a couple scenes before it’s clear he’s just going to be awesome throughout, like he’s the only one who gets to know the film’s destination.

After running around in circles–literally–Corbucci gets Silence into the second act and the film starts to get a lot different. None of the Western tropes implied are getting followed up on. I mean, Trintignant’s even revealed to be hunting bounty killers because they killed his parents. Corbucci is going all out with the possible tropes and none of them really stick. Silvano Ippoliti’s photography is too heartless for them to stick. Even the Ennio Morricone score bucks sentimentality and nostalgia; it’s not a particularly successful score, but it is an effective one.

Instead, Silence becomes Wolff’s story. Turns out Luigi Pistilli’s Mr. Big is running the bounty hunters–that political subplot possibility–and Wolff’s going to do whatever it takes to keep things apolitical and legal. There’s a lot about legality in Great Silence; Corbucci plays just enough into Spaghetti Western expectations to get away with a lot of exposition and a lot of sentimentality. The love scene between Trintignant and Vonetta McGee (as the woman who hires him to avenge her husband–against Kinski, of course)–their whole romance–is just a subplot in what’s first Wolff’s film and then Kinski’s. Even though Trintignant is playing the title character–he’s The Great Silence–Corbucci kicks the genre around enough to allow the hero to be another player and a silent one at that.

See, Trintignant isn’t speaking. Those bounty killers who killed his parents made him mute. His whole performance is stress fractures in stoicism, which makes the whole love story subplot even better. It’s also a device for Corbucci’s commentary–the hero, though present and active, is removed from the viewer’s experience of the film.

Kinski’s amazing. It’s his movie. Wolff’s great, McGhee’s great. There’s a lot going on in the second act, including some nice stuff from Marisa Merlini too. Corbucci’s going for better performances than one expects from a Spaghetti Western; he’s refusing to let them be caricature. After threatening it for the first act; presumably to get the viewer to pay attention.

And then there’s the finish, which is sort of what the third act to the first act would look like–with a more traditional second act–only Corbucci’s run it through that devastating second act.

So the big question–since I didn’t start writing this response with a star rating decided on–do Corbucci’s successes make up for the film’s problems. And they do. The Great Silence has some slow parts, some seemingly needless shots, some way too long takes, but Corbucci does bring it all together and make something fantastic. It’s exceptional.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Sergio Corbucci; screenplay by Vittoriano Petrilli, Mario Amendola, Bruno Corbucci, and Sergio Corbucci, based on a story by Sergio Corbucci; director of photography, Silvano Ippoliti; edited by Amedeo Salfa; music by Ennio Morricone; produced by Attilio Riccio and Robert Dorfmann; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant (Silence), Klaus Kinski (Tigrero), Vonetta McGee (Pauline Middleton), Frank Wolff (Sheriff Gideon Corbett), Marisa Merlini (Regina), Mario Brega (Martin), and Luigi Pistilli (Henry Pollicut).

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Repo Man (1984, Alex Cox)

For such an “odd” movie, Repo Man is incredibly precise. Writer-director Cox has four or five subplots–depending on if Emilio Estevez becoming a repo man and his journey as one is considered the plot, as Cox downgrades it to subplot status about three-quarters through the picture. Sometimes these subplots become so intense they jumble–I had to pause it and turn to the wife to ask her why Harry Dean Stanton was in the hospital, for instance.

Cox is just as precise with his composition and the film’s technical side. From the first scene, it’s clear he and editor Dennis Dolan are going to excel at cutting the film. Robby Müller’s photography is good, but it’s nowhere near as essential as Dolan’s editing. Repo Man just flows; great integration with the soundtrack too.

Estevez, though second billed, is the lead. He just has to be a disaffected youth–even when he becomes self-aware, it’s nothing compared to the lunacy of his new life in car repossession; Cox handles that scene beautifully (even if I lost track of Stanton in it).

As for Stanton, he has the film’s biggest arc. He’s the traditional Western hero who learns his code isn’t going to get him through life. Cox doesn’t exactly mix genres, just borrows people from other ones and drops them in the film. Stanton’s utterly fantastic.

Great supporting work all around, particularly from Tracey Walter, Sy Richardson and Tom Finnegan.

Repo Man is strange, hostile and wonderful.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Alex Cox; director of photography, Robby Müller; edited by Dennis Dolan; music by Steven Hufsteter and Tito Larriva; production designer, Lynda Burbank; produced by Peter McCarthy and Jonathan Wacks; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Harry Dean Stanton (Bud), Emilio Estevez (Otto), Tracey Walter (Miller), Olivia Barash (Leila), Sy Richardson (Lite), Susan Barnes (Agent Rogersz), Fox Harris (J. Frank Parnell), Tom Finnegan (Oly), Del Zamora (Lagarto), Eddie Velez (Napo), Zander Schloss (Kevin), Jennifer Balgobin (Debbi), Dick Rude (Duke), Miguel Sandoval (Archie), Vonetta McGee (Marlene) and Richard Foronjy (Plettschner).

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