A Challenge for Robin Hood (1967)

Posted on May 21, 2012 at 6:00 am by Jeff Kuykendall

Hammer’s third go at the Robin Hood legend is something of a latecomer, there being a seven-year gap between this film, A Challenge for Robin Hood (1967), and their previous Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960). It’s what we would now call a reboot. The Terence Fisher film left Robin Hood betrothed to Maid Marian, and the villains, including the Sheriff of Nottingham, slain. Director C.M. Pennington-Richards (Black Tide) and screenwriter Peter Bryan (The Hound of the Baskervilles), ignoring the previous films, decide to retell the legend from the very beginning, and end the story without tying up all the loose threads. In other words, this must have been intended as the start of a new franchise, one that never quite got off the ground as Hammer ran into some late-60’s troubles finding American partners to co-finance and distribute their films. Challenge is a deliberate throwback to the matinee adventure movies of decades past, and probably not the kind of film the studio should have been making by 1967, but one thing is for certain: everyone’s in their comfort zone, and the film works more or less as it’s intended. Fisher had something of a revisionist take on the Hood legend, with style and a bit of grimness at the edges, but Pennington-Richards reaches all the way back to Errol Flynn, if not Douglas Fairbanks. (On a Hammer budget, of course.)

Barrie Ingham as Robin de Courtenay, soon to be Robin Hood.

There’s some nice misdirection in the opening scene. A royal deer is shot by a hunter, and in retribution the hunter is slain by a Norman lord. The grieving son fires an arrow which plants itself in the tree next to the murderous nobleman – so you’d be forgiven if you assume the boy grows up to be Robin Hood. He’s actually Stephen Fitzwarren (John Gugolka), the young brother of Lady Marian Fitzwarren (Gay Hamilton), who’s en route to stay at the castle of the de Courtenays, led by the ailing Sir John de Courtenay (William Squire). The castle is a stew of treachery fit for a Shakespearean tragedy. When de Courtenay dies, the evil Roger de Courtenay (Peter Blythe, Frankenstein Created Woman) burns the will before the astonished eyes of his family and servants, declaring himself the rightful ruler. Later that night he frames his chief rival, Robin de Courtenay (Barrie Ingham, Dr. Who and the Daleks), for the murder of another cousin. Amidst this bloody power grab, Robin flees with a friar named Tuck (James Hayter, Oliver!), and the two become wanted men. The only thing left for Robin to do is join up with the resistance – some men who are merry – and become an outlaw named Hood. First on the agenda: rescue his friend Will Scarlett (Douglas Mitchell) from hanging, and nab some green-colored garments at the market.

Gay Hamilton as Maid Marian.

Hamilton is this installment’s Maid Marian – the handmaid, for she’s disguised herself while allowing another girl to play her role as a noblewoman; she’s lovely, and gets a nice moment where she slaps the Sheriff of Nottingham (John Arnatt) twice in the face after he leers at her. Ingham at first doesn’t seem a natural fit for Robin Hood – but he grows on you as the film progresses (largely thanks to his enthusiasm), and the remaining cast members, though less impressive at a glance than that of the previous Hammer foray into Sherwood Forest, soon inhabit their roles appropriately. The key reason A Challenge for Robin Hood works is not Pennington-Richards – though he stages the action scenes with suitable excitement – but the screenplay by Bryan, which demonstrates the eternal advantage of strong storytelling. I was taken out of the familiar Hammer frame and back to the rich world of author and illustrator Howard Pyle (who authored one of the most influential interpretations of the character). Twentieth Century Fox distributed Challenge, but soon Hammer would have to tighten their belts – and the smaller budgets would reflect on the product. This, their last adventure with Robin Hood, can be linked to Terence Fisher’s The Devil Rides Out (1968) as a last hurrah for the studio at its classiest.

Posted in Theater Midnight Matinee | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on A Challenge for Robin Hood (1967)

Piranha (1978)

Posted on May 18, 2012 at 6:00 am by Jeff Kuykendall

Even as a kid perusing the boxes at the video store, I knew that Piranha (1978) only existed because of Jaws (1975). It was easy to tell: the cover art was almost identical, and only the deadly fish was swapped out. The public of the late 70’s may have been just as cynical – if they were savvy enough, they might have noted that exploitation maestro Roger Corman was involved, which would surely justify the film’s existence – but those who caught it in the theater would have quickly discovered that this was something very unexpected after all. And a lot of people caught it at the theater (or, more appropriately, the drive-in); it was a substantial hit for Corman’s New World Pictures, and helped launch the career of Corman prodigy Joe Dante, who had previously co-directed Hollywood Boulevard (1976), but would tackle the higher-profile werewolf movie The Howling (1981) next. Dante was the key to the film’s success. You discovered, when you actually saw the film, that Piranha was much better than it had any right to be. Sure, it had killer piranha and massacres at the beach, but it was also very, very funny, in what can be seen in retrospect as Dante’s trademark style.

Paul (Bradford Dillman) and Maggie (Heather Menzies) uncover - and accidentally trigger - a deadly army experiment.

Maggie (Heather Menzies, of the Logan’s Run TV series) works for a missing persons agency, searching for two teenagers – whom we know were killed by piranha during a midnight swim in a pool at an army test site (since we saw it all unfold in the pre-credits sequence). To track them down, she teams with Paul (Bradford Dillman, The Swarm), a bearded, flannel-wearing, alcoholic outdoorsman. When they discover the military facility, they find evidence of strange experiments: there’s even – in a Ray Harryhausen homage – a little stop-motion creature created by Phil Tippett. The experiments were conducted by a scientist, Dr. Hoak (Kevin McCarthy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers), who is too late to stop the hapless Maggie from flipping a “Drain Pool” switch which immediately dumps his school of savage mutated piranha from the fish hatchery into the nearby river. While the trio race downstream to warn the locals, the piranha unleash havoc at a summer camp, slaughtering both camp counselors and children indiscriminately. Corman company player Dick Miller, who would reappear in so many Dante films, has one of his most memorable roles here as Buck Gardner, a sleazy businessman opening a resort in the path of the deadly piranha – think Mayor Vaughn in Jaws, but ratcheted up a few satirical notches. Also present: Barbara Steele (Black Sunday), Keenan Wynn (Dr. Strangelove), Paul Bartel (director of Death Race 2000), and Belinda Balaski (Gremlins).

A briefly-glimpsed little lab monster is the creation of stop-motion animator Phil Tippett, who worked on the "Star Wars" and "Jurassic Park" franchises.

That pre-credits sequence may lead you to believe this will be a standard-issue Jaws rip-off: teens go skinny dipping, then screams are heard, and the water turns red. But the credits proper transition straight to the Jaws stand-up arcade game, being played by our heroine in an airport. It’s as though Dante’s speaking to the audience directly: “You can relax. We’re on the same page here, and we’re going to have fun.” What follows expresses the B-movie love that Dante has always demonstrated in his films, going all the way back to his college roadshow mash-up The Movie Orgy. Here he’s working from a screenplay by another Corman prodigy, one who would move on to an entirely different kind of directorial career: John Sayles, who also wrote the campy Corman epic Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), is now best known for his thoughtful independent dramas like Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979), Baby It’s You (1983), Eight Men Out (1988), and Lone Star (1996), among many others. Given that he’s now a respected novelist as well, it’s strangely comforting to know that Sayles still wrote Piranha, dammit. But it’s a clever script, and Dante makes the most of it, happy to build a horror movie that’s equally weighted toward its characters as its monsters. About those monsters: they’re handheld puppets which don’t look half-bad, but are more cute than terrifying – an element that only adds to the film’s perennial charm.

For the mad scientist role, Joe Dante cast Kevin McCarthy, best known for his iconic performance in the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

Dante doesn’t look back too fondly upon the learning experience that was Piranha; on the commentary track to the DVD (and more recent Shout! Factory Blu-Ray) he recounts a weary, unpleasant shoot, followed by countless hours alone in the editing suite trying to fix the footage he had. But the end result is a breezy 92 minutes of monster-movie fun, something not quite captured by the inevitable remake. That 2010 film at least understood that it shouldn’t take the concept seriously, but the boobs-and-booze Spring Break approach is about as far from Dante’s retro-oriented aesthetic as possible. The sequel, which makes its intentions known with its title – Piranha 3DD – arrives in a few weeks. And, yes, I’ll go. But lest any of us complain too much, we must remember that Roger Corman’s factory was only focused upon producing commercial, pure-exploitation movies. Quality was an accidental byproduct; it’s just that he tended to hire very talented people, and let them do what they did best. The original Piranha wasn’t left alone for very long; it was a big enough success that a cash-in sequel quickly arrived, called Piranha II: The Spawning (1981). When the original director was fired, another of Corman’s ridiculously talented crew took his place: James Cameron.

Posted in Theater Caligari | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Posted on May 16, 2012 at 6:00 am by Jeff Kuykendall

Here in Madison we have a restaurant called the Tipsy Cow, and on the wall hangs a chalkboard that diagrams a key moment from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975): a cow being catapulted onto the heads of King Arthur and his knights (or “k…niggets”). Once this was a cult movie; I’m not sure what it is anymore. A few years back Eric Idle launched his “Greedy Bastard Tour,” performing some stand-up, singing songs, and recreating Python sketches before an appreciative audience (including one in Madison). During the tour he began to plan a Broadway version of Holy Grail, working closely with his longtime musical collaborator, composer John Du Prez, who had joined him on the road. Idle received the blessing of the other Pythons, and the resulting musical, Spamalot – starring Tim Curry in the Graham Chapman role, with Hank Azaria and David Hyde Pierce – won the Tony Award. I attended a preview performance while it was still in Chicago’s Shubert Theatre, being edited and rewritten each night. It was a fun experience, but also a disorienting one. It used to be that Monty Python was a members-only club; you had to be initiated by a friend, who would say, “You haven’t seen this? You have to watch this.” The tape which was usually popped into the VCR – the dose of Python guaranteed to cause addiction – was Holy Grail. Of course everyone had heard of Monty Python, but there was still something secret and special and somewhat outlaw about that club – at least in America. Anointed by Tony amidst the glamor of Broadway, Monty Python could no longer pretend to be secret, and was just a little less outlaw. So it’s a relief to revisit this much-memorized, much-recited film and see that it’s still as winningly silly as ever, and fucking hilarious.

"Holy Grail" publicity still: Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, John Cleese, and Terry Gilliam (at bottom).

The occasion for revisiting Holy Grail is the new Blu-Ray, which makes this overcast and muddy little Medieval comedy look a lot better than I thought possible. Then again, I realized while watching it that I’m still so overfamiliar with pan-and-scan copies of the film that I can still be surprised to see the entire title card of “The Tale of Sir Launcelot” appearing on the screen without clipping. So it’s hard for me to see this particular movie with new eyes, but the Blu-Ray helps (the animations by Terry Gilliam, so much more colorful than anything else in Holy Grail, pop especially brightly). There is no point in summarizing the film; you have seen it. But I will anyway: this, the Pythons’ second film after the ironically-titled And Now For Something Completely Different (1971) – a big-screen version of their Flying Circus sketches, and a film for which the Pythons had little creative control – is their first with a connecting narrative and all-original material, parodying the legend of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the quest for the holy grail. Classic Python moments commence immediately. Arthur (Chapman) rides over a hill with his servant Patsy (Terry Gilliam), who’s clapping two coconuts together because the film’s budget couldn’t afford horses. They greet two guards standing atop an immense curtain wall, but the conversation can’t move past the mystery of how Patsy could have found coconuts in England, so Arthur departs in frustration. Then: the “Bring Out Your Dead” sketch. The “Constitutional Peasants” sketch. The “Black Knight” sketch. The “Witch Burning” sketch (with Fawlty Towers co-writer Connie Booth). The French Taunters, Brave Sir Robin, Castle Anthrax, Swamp Castle, The Killer Rabbit, and on and on. Eventually the film does run out of steam (I submit: everything after the “Intermission” gag; or roughly the last ten minutes), but I was struck on this viewing by just how high the hit-to-miss ratio is. Most comedies these days are lucky to get one memorably funny scene out of 90 minutes, but Holy Grail is chock full of them.

Negotiating with the censors: this memo was reproduced in the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" tie-in book.

Which is something of a miracle if you consider that, by all accounts, it was an agony to make. It took a long while to arrive at a shooting script, since the original intention was to have some of the action take place in contemporary England (Arthur and his knights take their quest for the grail to Harrods); abandoned material actually worked its way into the fourth, Cleese-free series of the Python show (now called, simply, Monty Python). The location shooting was cold and rain-drenched, which made the woolen “chain mail” unbearable for the actors. Chapman, still struggling with alcoholism, suffered the shakes while trying to cross the genuinely risky Bridge of Death; Cleese had a similar moment of panic while standing atop a narrow crag for his role as Tim the Enchanter – explosions igniting around him. The normally sunny Michael Palin was undone by a scene in which he lurked in the background eating mud for take after take; what he’s doing is barely visible in the shot, somewhat ruining the gag. The decision to have Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones co-direct caused unending tension when the two failed to agree from one scene to the next. (Gilliam surrendered directing duties on subsequent Python films Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life to Jones, who had a smoother rapport with the actors.) Nevertheless, Holy Grail as a cinematic comedy is equally served by Jones’ comic timing and Gilliam’s knack for stunning visuals. The squalor of the sets may have been hell for the actors, but it sharpens the comic contrast between the Pasolini-esque realism and ugliness of Medieval peasant life with the stream-of-consciousness silliness of the script. This is perhaps best illustrated when Palin ridicules King Arthur’s Lady of the Lake origins with increasingly verbose insults – “You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!” – while pointlessly piling mud into a small hillock with his wife (Jones, in “Pepperpot” mode).

Playbill from the preview performances in Chicago for "Spamalot" (prior to its Broadway opening).

The Pythons treated their fans well, giving much thought to every piece of merchandising. The comedy album version – essential in the pre-VHS/Beta era – contained dialogue from the film, but also “huge tracts” of original material from the comedy team. The published screenplay featured early drafts of the script as well as storyboards, Gilliam sketches, and reproductions of the film’s lobby cards, with whimsical descriptions of the plot: “Doug and Bob are metropolitan policemen with a difference…” A CD-ROM computer game in the 90’s (from the defunct 7th Level) was a point-and-click adventure in which the player could visit the film’s various setpieces, clicking through dialogue and collecting items, occasionally rewarded with outtakes or deleted scenes. (The new Blu-Ray finally includes the footage from those snipped scenes, along with animations by Gilliam cut from the film.) Recently there’s even been a Monty Python and the Holy Grail Ale. I believe it’s true that in America, Holy Grail is the most popular Python film, whereas in England, fans hold Life of Brian dearer. It makes sense that Idle would choose Holy Grail as the subject of his Broadway venture – that’s the one Americans know the best. (Life of Brian‘s “think for yourself” message never went over terribly well in this God-fearing country, but I do feel it’s the better of the two pictures.) Decades on from its original release, Holy Grail may be completely appropriated into the culture, but look – Young Frankenstein‘s on Broadway too, and the Glee kids have done Rocky Horror. You can still watch the Blu-Ray and revisit the movie as it ever was. The definitive new disc is spiffed-up, but Palin’s still there on his knees, scarfing mud.

The Tipsy Cow in Madison, Wisconsin

Posted in Theater Harpo | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)