Cobra Woman (1943)

Posted on July 30, 2020 at 12:46 pm by Jeff Kuykendall

During WWII, Spanish born model Maria Montez enjoyed a brief burst of stardom, under contract with Universal and appearing in a string of pulp adventures and thrillers that were sold on her exoticism and sensuality. Following bit parts in films like The Invisible Woman (1940) and That Night in Rio (1941), Montez began to make a name for herself as a pin-up ready beauty in the likes of South of Tahiti (1941) and Mystery of Marie Roget (1942), striking it big with Arabian Nights (1942), a costumed, Technicolor semi-spectacle that spawned a follow-up (1944’s Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves) and many imitations. Her chiseled, charming co-stars in that film were Jon Hall and Sabu, the often-shirtless young Indian actor who had become an unlikely matinee star thanks to roles in the Alexander Korda productions The Thief of Bagdad (1940) and Jungle Book (1942). Together, the three were reunited for the island adventure film White Savage (1943), and then the very similar Cobra Woman (1943). Kino has just released Arabian Nights and Cobra Woman on Blu-ray, which would make a wonderful, colorful double feature, but today we are here for the latter film. Cobra Woman bears the reputation of a camp classic, but it’s an utter delight even if enjoyed solely for its derivative thrills.

The evil high priestess Naja (Maria Montez) prepares to dance with a giant king cobra.

Montez is ambitiously cast as twin sisters, good and evil, who were separated following a cobra bite ritual to determine who should be the high priestess of Cobra Island, which lies somewhere unspecified in the South Seas. The sinister, power-hungry Naja endured the bite with no protest and was chosen, but Tollea, suffering from the poison, was sentenced to death. An outsider who found his way to the island, the Scotsman MacDonald (Moroni Olsen, Notorious), is given Tollea so she can be smuggled away on his boat. But our story begins on a nearby island, as the grown Tollea prepares to wed Ramu (Hall) with MacDonald’s blessing. Sabu plays Ramu’s (shirtless) companion Kado, and keeps a pet chimpanzee named Coco. One day this group meets a mysterious stranger, Hava (Lon Chaney, The Wolf Man), pretending to be a blind and mute beggar, who abducts Tollea after killing one of her servants with a musical pipe outfitted with two prongs dipped in cobra poison. MacDonald confesses Tollea’s backstory to Ramu, and surmises that she’s been taken back to Cobra Island to be killed. Ramu, Kado, and the chimp set off to rescue her, but their plans go awry when Naja falls for Ramu (who at first mistakes the woman for her sister, and embraces her while she’s taking a swim). We also learn that the high priestess, with the menacing Martok (Edgar Barrier, Phantom of the Opera), has been using the swelling ranks of the local cobra cult to steal influence away from the island’s proper queen (Mary Nash, The Philadelphia Story), who sent for Tollea so she can usurp her sister’s place.

Sabu and Jon Hall explore Cobra Island.

The expected problematic colonialist-pulp elements don’t cause too much offense since it’s not really possible to discern just what’s being stereotyped or exoticized. True, Sabu’s character is unsurprisingly servile, and most of the island inhabitants – those who are the extras – are brown (or skin-darkened thus) and easily dominated by their white priestess, but the film’s peculiar, random constellation of influences and designs places this in the realm of pure fantasy; we might as well be in Oz rather than some quasi-Tahiti. It’s all too generic and silly, as one can tell just from the character names, which all sound like villains from 60’s Stan Lee/Jack Kirby comics. Naja ends her pronouncements with: “I have spoken.” When she’s not standing in her cobra temple, she’s lounging in an Arabian Nights-styled harem, glowing amongst her white serving girls as if to suggest they glorify her with a bit more than just food and drink. She bathes in a one-piece silver swimsuit that looks more like a form-fitting dress, and later – in the film’s kitsch showstopper – opens a ceremonial robe to reveal a sequined gown and performs an erotic dance before a giant snake puppet, which lunges toward her with its phallic head. This suddenly works her into a psychopathic sexual frenzy, and from the crowd she picks out human sacrifices for the volcano, who are immediately seized and carried away. Meanwhile, Jon Hall just walks in and out of the palace as he pleases, apparently; even after he’s captured by Martok and thrown in a dungeon, he turns the tables, steals Martok’s “cobra sword” and robe, and struts around as though no one could possibly recognize him now. Naja is only excited by his antics, wishing to marry him so they can rule the island together, but he rebuffs her, and she has the island searched for Tollea. One hopes that the final sisterly reunion will be accompanied by some Parent Trap-style split-screen, but alas, this is not the case.

Sabu swings into action.

For all the criticisms Montez receives as an actress, she deserves a bit more credit: despite the incongruity of her Spanish accent – and everything is incongruous here – she performs as well as one can reasonably expect with this material. Once her two characters meet, it is obvious to the viewer which sister is which, as she plays Tollea with the right amount of uncertainty and softness. (It makes sense that, at this stage, both Hall and Sabu can recognize the real Tollea straight away.) And as viewing for a lazy afternoon, the film has much to recommend it: Technicolor that pops, fun matte paintings and set designs, and sequences that seem to have influenced the likes of Conan the Barbarian (the giant snake ritual) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – witness the rope-swinging to and from the temple platform in the climax and try not to think of Indy in the temple of Kali. Director Robert Siodmak, now well-regarded for thrillers like Phantom Lady (1944), The Spiral Staircase (1946), and Criss Cross (1949), squeezes every ounce of entertainment that he can out of some pretty thin ingredients, and does so in a tight 71 minutes. Never mind that the climax is abrupt and fails to disguise its brazen illogic. It’s the sort of movie that, a decade later, would have been made in 3-D with spears flung at the audience. Plus, the dialogue: the cultists chanting “King cobra! King cobra!” and Montez declaring, “It is the cobra law!”…you could enjoy a productive drinking game around the word “cobra” alone.

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TRON (1982)

Posted on July 24, 2020 at 12:41 pm by Jeff Kuykendall

I was the right age when TRON (1982) was released. The ambitious Disney live-action/computer-animated spectacle may have been a financial failure, but I was too young to notice anything but the film and its merchandising: its completely unique look with those neon-highlighted uniforms and arenas. I was playing the Atari 2600 and begging my dad for quarters at the mall arcade, and here was a film which used the aesthetic of those early video and computer games to create a fantasy world where the competition could actually kill (or “de-rez”). I was a California Bay Area kid. In 1983 our family took a vacation to Disneyland, and while riding the “People Movers” with my mother – too scared to go with my sister and dad on Space Mountain or the Matterhorn, Tomorrowland’s electric tram was more my speed – I was dazzled when we passed into a dark space that suddenly, below us, transformed into the computer world of TRON, light cycles zipping across the landscape at right-angles. It may have been a shrug of a marketing move instead of a fully realized TRON ride, but for that half-minute or so the world of TRON became even more alluring. In its puffy, oversized Disney VHS case it became a favorite video store rental, and if the actual arcade cabinet presented an impossible challenge to play, at least with its aesthetics I could trick myself into thinking I enjoyed it while Dad’s quarters quickly vanished. The 80’s were a godsend for kids looking for escapism at the theater; Indiana Jones and Star Wars meant more to me. But it’s impossible to imagine my childhood without TRON.

Light cycle racing in the opening minutes of TRON.

So – greetings, Programs! – you can imagine that watching the film today, there’s a thick swamp of nostalgia for me to wade through, watching scenes and listening to (not at all special) dialogue that’s been long since imprinted on me. Nonetheless, the film’s flaws are obvious even to a TRON nerd like myself. It’s been about twenty years since I watched it last, and I was floored by how clumsily the film opens. After a spectacular opening title, the single word spinning and overwhelming us as we dive into animated computer circuitry, we skip jarringly from one moment to another. The sinister program Sark (David Warner, as evil as he is in the previous year’s Time Bandits but nowhere near as funny) reports to the giant face which is the MCP (Master Control Program). Video athletes whom we haven’t properly met compete in a light cycle race. Essentially, the film – eager to assure us that there will be a lot of cool stuff in this movie, don’t you worry – spoils its fantasy world and does so with choppy editing and a confusing narrative. Imagine how much of the magic would have been drained if The Wizard of Oz began in Oz, in color, to discuss the state of the Emerald City, and then switched back to black-and-white Kansas to meet Dorothy. An awkward “Meanwhile, in the real world…” intertitle, the likes of which will never be repeated in the film, transitions us to the story proper, as we meet programmer Alan (Bruce Boxleitner), an employee of the vaguely sinister ENCOM. Alan has designed an all-encompassing company security program which is concerning to its Senior Executive VP Ed Dillinger (Warner), who consults with the MCP – a domineering artificial intelligence which is swallowing up intellectual property from other companies and blackmailing him to comply with its plans. Alan’s girlfriend Lora (Caddyshack‘s Cindy Morgan) is working on another ENCOM project with Dr. Walter Gibbs (Barnard Hughes) which can digitize matter, which is important to me, because the film is barely about that. Upon learning from Dillinger that someone’s been trying to hack ENCOM, Alan and Lora seek out the #1 suspect, their friend and former co-worker Flynn (Jeff Bridges), who owns his own arcade that features the video game he designed while at ENCOM, Space Paranoids. Flynn cops to hacking the company, trying to uncover some material evidence that he designed many of ENCOM’s hit games – and this is the focus of the plot. Not the fact that Lora and Dr. Gibbs have essentially invented teleportation. No, this is a story about receiving proper credit and earning residuals.

Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) and Flynn (Jeff Bridges) discuss hacking ENCOM.

I’m being a little unfair. TRON is prescient in many ways, including the fact that the MCP gains more power by stealing technology from other companies, a tactic that has become more common in the online world. The idea of MCP/ENCOM growing and growing by greedy acquisition also foreshadows Amazon and (gasp!) Disney. And it’s fun to realize how common the terminology of TRON is today, when it seemed like so much esoteric computer-babble in its time: we don’t have to think hard about the role of a security program, why one character is called Ram, or why the floating binary bit can only answer questions in yes or no; even the terms “program” and “user” weren’t in everyday use in 1982, at least among people who weren’t computer geeks. Director Steven Lisberger, who had previously directed animation, wanted to make a thoughtful science fiction adventure which reflected, as accurately as possible in this fantasy context, the state of computer programming in the early 80’s. That’s interesting as far as it goes, but the film’s strengths lie in its surface pleasures, which are considerable. Once Flynn is digitized by the MCP-controlled laser and converted into a digital character, the film transforms from a Brainstorm-style computer conspiracy thriller into authentic cyberpunk. This transition occurs with a trippy 2001-style voyage into the computer which must have looked spectacular for those who saw the film in 70mm. To film the computer world, the actors were shot in black-and-white wearing circuitry-inspired costumes designed by the legendary French comic book artist Moebius (aka Jean Giraud), with black strips of tape on their uniforms lit up in post-production to become glowing streaks of light. With their faces still monochrome, and their bodies rendered with fuzzy boundaries as they walk through bluescreened environments, the effect is eerie. The landscapes were designed by Syd Mead, who was having a big year thanks to his extraordinary work on Blade Runner. Some of the computer realms, particularly in a late-film voyage via the “solar sailor,” look like prog rock album covers. And a jai alai battle inspired by games like Pong and Breakout is genuinely suspenseful.

The fugitive security program Tron (Boxleitner) explores the computer world.

The computer animation was groundbreaking for its day. Consider how far the technology advanced from the Death Star destruction simulation reviewed inside the Rebel base in Star Wars to the brightly-colored, shaded contours of the light cycle races here. They still hold up very well for one important reason: they’re not meant to look real, but to represent an up-close, three-dimensional video game. Importantly, the entire film is not computer-animated (that wouldn’t have been possible at the time), instead employing a variety of techniques to fool the eye into not quite understanding what it’s seeing, forcing you to buy into the illusion. It’s also visually arresting, on an MC Escher level, that from scene to scene we “users” can’t easily discern solid from empty space, where someone might cross a transparent bridge or drop into eternity. The electronic score by experimental musician Wendy Carlos is perfect: offbeat, slightly queasy, and always with one foot in the sounds of an arcade game. Still, the world-building is glaringly insufficient. In later scenes where the fugitive programs Tron (Boxleitner) and Yori (Morgan) explore a city, we’re just greeted with a variety of strange characters posing or stiffly talking to each other; there doesn’t seem much for these programs to actually do in their downtime. Where do they live? What are their goals? We do learn that they can drink energy, as – in a nice moment – Flynn and his fellow escapees discover a secret river of the stuff in its purest form. We also learn that the programs live in worshipful awe of their “users,” which is weirdly uncomfortable as they come to realize that Flynn is one of those god-like beings. It’s even more uncomfortable when Flynn locks lips with Yori, who bears the image of his ex-girlfriend in the real world. What does she or her avatar mean to him? What is he thinking?  (I’m resisting the urge to analyze all this – I really, really want to – but TRON barely gives these topics any thought.) Only one funny moment, when an insurance actuarial program begins to speak in the sales pitch of its user, offers a glimpse of the wit and fleshed-out details another script draft might have given us: “Of course, if you think of the annuity as a payment over the years, the cost is really quite minimal.” The characters are all flat as pixels with the exception of Bridges, who shoehorns his trademark sly charm to give the film just enough of the human to provide the necessary contrast with the virtual.

Battle on the solar sailor.

The film arrived during a directionless period in Disney’s history, when many of their films were released in a confused state, notably in the “horror flick or kid’s movie?” items The Black Hole (1979), The Watcher in the Woods (1980), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), and the PG animated The Black Cauldron (1985). The trajectory became familiar: start with an ambitious project with a bit of edginess, then check it with nervous second-guessing. Of this period, perhaps TRON shines brightest, because despite its flaws it is the least compromised. Disney really hoped this would be its Star Wars, and invested in its cutting-edge approach to fantasy filmmaking. The film may have flopped, but its pop culture impact cast a much longer shadow, such that the property was resurrected for a light cycle theme park ride in Shanghai Disneyland and a big-budget sequel, TRON: Legacy (2010), which my niece holds up as one of her favorite films. I’m due to rewatch TRON: Legacy. When I saw it in the theater, I loved the Daft Punk soundtrack and the updated visuals, but was disappointed that the story did little more than act as a nostalgic tribute to the original. We’ve become such an online, technology-focused society, shouldn’t the story be updated to reflect the new super-connected, cyberpunk world we’re all living in, and apply its science fantasy from there? Instead, the 1982 world of the MCP is preserved on its original hard drive, so we can see how the environment has aged. Given how much nostalgia colors my feelings for the Lisberger film, perhaps I shouldn’t be protesting that approach.

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Capsule Reviews

Posted on July 17, 2020 at 10:58 am by Jeff Kuykendall

Well, I didn’t mean to leave this site gathering cobwebs for a few weeks (although cobwebs are always a good look), so as I get caught up from a summer vacation, forgive this rambling, scattershot post. I’ll get back to full-length reviews next week, promise.

What have I been doing? Buying and watching movies. During our pandemic spring and summer, boutique labels such as Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, Kino, Mondo Macabro and others have been running sales and exclusive/limited edition releases, offering physical media fans a chance to bury themselves in cult cinema, and possibly bankrupt themselves. As I write this, the semi-annual Barnes & Noble half-off sale on the Criterion Collection is underway, which is why the new Bruce Lee box set is staring down at me right now. “You already have most of my movies,” the ghost of Bruce Lee is scowling. “Is it just because it’s a really nice box? Is that why?”

I’m still a big proponent of physical media, even as streaming services keep launching and people keep subscribing. Though Blu-ray sales have been in rapid decline, I suspect it will endure on some level in the same way that vinyl has remained popular following its unexpected comeback. And the upside of the major studios’ faded interest in the physical format is that more licensing opportunities have opened up for the boutiques, at least from some of those studios (when it comes to the physical release of catalog titles, the full impact of Disney’s acquisition of Fox remains to be seen, but it’s a cause of concern given Disney’s track record). Criterion’s ability to include Enter the Dragon with its Bruce Lee box set (including the rare theatrical version) is something of an achievement, as Shout couldn’t manage it a few years ago with the Lee titles in their Shout Select line. But Shout also has a new victory: by a miraculous alignment of planets, the full Friday the 13th franchise – spanning both Paramount and New Line’s history with the series, including the 2009 reboot – has just been announced in a lavish box set. This includes Part III in real 3-D (not red/blue anaglyph) – even though 3-D televisions ceased production years ago, a fact that hasn’t stopped some labels. (The fabulous 3-D Film Archive continues to work on restorations of often deeply obscure titles for Blu-ray.) As a collector, these are the best of times, these are the worst of times.

A killing in “Trauma”

Anyway, the discs have been flowing in such that I really need to get ahold of the influx and start working through the pile. That’s underway, and it mostly involves watching a lot of giallo, the pulp-inspired genre of black-gloved killers, tangled plots, outrageous fashions, and (sometimes, not always) J&B whisky. Vinegar Syndrome’s recent Forgotten Gialli: Volume One box set includes two Spanish gialli and one Italian, all of them far out of the cult “mainstream.” The highlight of these is Trauma (1978), from León Klimovsky, the prolific Spanish director perhaps best known for his collaborations with Paul Naschy. This is a bizarrely compelling erotic thriller templated pretty rigidly as a gender-flipped Psycho, with a writer (Heinrich Starhemberg) fleeing a strained marriage to take an extended stay at a secluded inn run by a woman (Ágata Lys) who seems peculiarly averse to taking in guests, or at least those who don’t abide by her strict moral guidelines. She frequently runs upstairs to have heated arguments with her husband, who is too sick to come downstairs and meet the guests, and always kept off-screen. Killings ensue. Despite the strange casting of charisma void Starhemberg – who disrobes for a sex scene that no one asked for – this is the kind of trashy entertainment that we want from a giallo programmer.

“The Police are Blundering in the Dark”

The Spanish Agatha Christie riff The Killer is One of 13 (1973) has a straightforward murder-mystery setup, with guests summoned to a remote manor because the host thinks one of them killed her husband. But the film is humorously padded with so much dialogue and exposition that by the time the guests start getting terrorized, the viewer may have tuned out entirely. A last-second twist makes no sense at all, though that’s not really out of character for a giallo. Finally, The Police are Blundering in the Dark (1978) may be the only Italian film in the bunch, but it’s also incompetently made (by Helia Colombo, who had never before made a film, and never would again), with characters and plot threads that come from nowhere and go nowhere, as if the narrator is from Drunk History. The most notable aspect is its left-field, third act plunge into science fiction. Though the films are really just curiosities of variable quality, the production of the set is first rate (the sturdy box opens to reveal a razor slashing it in half), and the special features allow for a greater appreciation of the history of the films, with audio commentaries and supplements by a reliable gathering of giallo experts: Kat Ellinger, Troy Howarth, and Rachael Nisbet.

Carroll Baker suddenly remembers the night before in “Orgasmo.”

I’m only halfway through Severin’s new four-film, two-CD box set The Complete Lenzi/Baker Giallo Collection, which includes the collaborations between director Umberto Lenzi and former Hollywood sex symbol Carroll Baker (Baby Doll) – but this is a wonderful journey so far. Orgasmo (aka Paranoia, 1969) is a delirious, whisky-drenched psychosexual thriller with the wealthy widow Kathryn (Baker) first aroused by, then held captive by two beautiful young people who may or may not be siblings (Lou Castel and Colette Descombes). The X-rated cut is included, though this is nothing more serious than a few extended bits of nudity from the fearless Baker. Be prepared for some stunning hallucinogenic moments with searing colors and close-ups of toy dolls and bare breasts, whiplash-inducing zooms, a hysteria-induced tumble down the stairs, third act makeup on Baker that has her looking like one of Romero’s living dead, and a big twist that arrives with amazing abruptness and violence. It’s all accompanied by a delightful commentary track by author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas which I can’t recommend more strongly. Last night I watched the next film in the set, So Sweet…So Perverse (1969) – like Orgasmo, a French co-production – which casts Jean-Louis Trintignant as a bored Parisian businessman who becomes involved with the woman in the apartment below (Baker) and her abusive husband. Unexpectedly, the film moves sharply into Les Diaboliques territory. Again – highly entertaining trash, and I look forward to the next two films in the set (A Quiet Place to Kill and Knife of Ice) after I make a run to the store for some whisky.

Jean Seberg (left) and Marisol in “The Corruption of Chris Miller.”

Severin also recently released The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971), a classic of the genre from director Sergio Martino (All the Colors of the Dark) and his muse, gorgeous Edwige Fenech. A serial killer is on the loose, and the culprit may be someone in Fenech’s highbrow social circle – possibly the man with whom she’s having an affair. Stylish as hell, with a fantastic twist halfway through the film and a final scene that’s truly memorable. Finally, I caught up with Vinegar Syndrome’s release of The Corruption of Chris Miller (1973), a Spanish thriller with a distinguished pedigree: internationally acclaimed director Juan Antonio Bardem (Death of a Cyclist) and stars Jean Seberg (Breathless) and Marisol, a former child actress and pop star effectively remaking her image. As with Orgasmo, the plot involves a kind of home invasion with a wealthy secluded woman – Seberg – as the object of attention for a lustful young man (Barry Stokes, later to appear in Norman J. Warren’s similarly plotted science fiction horror Prey). Both Seberg and Marisol are trapped in a rural limbo in the extended absence of Marisol’s father, Seberg’s former lover. Incestuous overtones, a lust triangle, and a late-arriving serial killer twist – including a genuinely chilling, rain-soaked slaughter – make this a potboiler worth checking out. With whisky. Always whisky.

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