Xanadu (1980)

Posted on March 29, 2015 at 2:52 am by Jeff Kuykendall

Xanadu

The term “guilty pleasure” seems to have been invented for Xanadu (1980). This is not a film one admits to liking in public. Still, it has become popular enough to have spawned a Broadway musical that was nominated for multiple Tonys. Because my sister was obsessed with the film as a child, so was I (I had no choice; she usually chose what we watched, which is why I, like many children, was traumatized by Little House on the Prairie, one of the most disturbing TV shows of all time). We watched Xanadu a lot. When I texted her this morning stating that I had just watched Xanadu, she replied, “Oh wow…that is so terrible, but I loved it so much. I don’t even know if I understood it. But the skating and the singing…” And because I was four years younger than her, the film was even more abstract, confused. I didn’t understand it. But the skating! The singing! Last night I decided to introduce my wife to the wonders of Xanadu. Afterward she asked, “So, when do I get that song out of my head?” “Never,” I told her honestly. “Whenever someone mentions Xanadu, that song will get stuck. That’s the deal.” So perhaps Xanadu is more like a curse that one passes to another, and the only way to get rid of Xanadu is to show it to someone else. (This is the plot of It Follows, right?)

The Greek Muses emerge from a mural to ELO's "I'm Alive."

The Greek Muses (including future Conan the Barbarian co-star Sandahl Bergman) emerge from a mural to ELO’s “I’m Alive.”

But there’s no denying that there is a pleasure to be taken out of the “guilty pleasure.” Someone had the good sense to hire Jeff Lynne and his Electric Light Orchestra to beef up the songbook alongside Olivia Newton-John’s longtime collaborator John Farrar. It’s Lynne who wrote the title song, which is essentially Newton-John fronting ELO (a combination that works). ELO also provides the songs “I’m Alive,” “All Over the World,” “The Fall,” and “Don’t Walk Away,” sounding very much their Mr. Blue Sky selves. Although I could stand to lose “Suspended in Time” and the big band pastiche “Whenever You’re Away from Me,” Farrar’s “Suddenly” is a flat-out lovely song, cynics; if nothing else, it’s an example of late 70’s/early 80’s easy listening at its least offensive. Obviously, your mileage will vary when it comes to musical tastes. But here’s the thing: even if you are enjoying the film solely as a “so bad it’s good” experience, Xanadu satisfies. This is a film that might have been just another Roller Boogie (1979), but somehow evolved into an Olivia Newton-John rock musical which takes pains to present disco and rock ‘n’ roll as a tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals, but within the confines of a roller rink. Not only was Gene Kelly convinced this was all a good idea, but he was talked into leading a roller derby brigade stomping their feet, crossing their arms into an X, and chanting “Xanadu!” He must have thought this was to be another charming retro-minded musical, like his cameo in the classic French film The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). Xanadu is no Young Girls of Rochefort. But it is very much Xanadu, and that’s all that really matters.

Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly) dances with Kira (Olivia Newton-John) to "Whenever You're Away from Me."

Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly) dances with Kira (Olivia Newton-John) to “Whenever You’re Away from Me.”

Kelly is playing Danny McGuire, an aging clarinetist who once led a Glen Miller-style big band. “Danny McGuire” was also the name of Kelly’s character in the 1944 film Cover Girl, which is appropriate, since Newton-John’s character in this film, Kira, graces an album cover herself. The album is by a band called The Nine Sisters, a reference to the Muses of Greek mythology, of which Kira is one – her real name being Terpsichore, the Muse of dance and song. McGuire knew one of Kira’s former incarnations, a singer from 1945, and in a daydream he imagines them dancing together. Kelly proves he can still cut up the dance floor, and Newton-John holds her own. This is the only scene in the movie which successfully pays tribute to Hollywood’s Golden Age without smearing it with neon mascara and glittery lip gloss, or lacing roller skates to its feet. Kelly can roller skate, but as his cinematic swan song, Xanadu is a peculiar choice, to put it mildly. It’s more than a cameo, more than the day’s shooting he put in for Jacques Demy and Rochefort, yet it’s amusing that he’s second billed while the film’s true leading man, Michael Beck (The Warriors), comes in a distant third: in a much smaller font after the opening title. Xanadu is a romance between Beck’s mural artist Sonny and Newton-John’s Kira, and his diminished status in the credits is just one sign of the film’s confused execution. Poor Danny McGuire is finally seeing the love of his life again, and she hasn’t aged; nevertheless, he shrugs and lets her run off with Sonny. How are we supposed to feel about that? Xanadu doesn’t have much time to dwell on it between musical numbers, which is fine, because all the dialogue in the film is disposable, if not outright painful, and the sooner it’s over the better. The story is a loose remake of 1947’s Down to Earth, and in an explicit visualization of the film’s Old Hollywood fetish, a big band led by a facsimile of the Andrews Sisters performs “Dancin'” on a stage directly opposite 80’s rock band The Tubes, grinding away at their own separate performance. Eventually the two stages begin to merge, the performers intermingle, and the songs become one. If you close your eyes, the effect works; but if you leave them open, my God. And that’s Xanadu in a nutshell. This is a film that got dressed in the dark.

Don Bluth's animated sequence for "Don't Walk Away."

Don Bluth’s animated sequence for “Don’t Walk Away.”

Sonny has fallen in love with the Muse of his dreams, though her true purpose is to inspire him to resurrect an abandoned auditorium to become the “Xanadu”: a roller skating disco nightclub fronted by Gene Kelly (just as Samuel Taylor Coleridge described it in 1797). Their love affair blossoms as it ought to: through musical numbers, first in “Suddenly” (roller skating around moving props) and then, with ELO’s “Don’t Walk Away,” in cel-animated form courtesy Don Bluth, who had recently led a mutiny of animators from Walt Disney Studios and was on his way to The Secret of NIMH (1982). Bluth’s vision of Kira is like a synthesis of Newton-John and the princess from his later laserdisc game Dragon’s Lair (1983). I doubt many would argue when I say this brief sequence is easily the best thing about Xanadu. Bluth uses his animation like a demo reel – showing off because he has to; he was forging a career as an independent animator to rival the monolithic Disney. It’s a staggering come-down when we cross from “Don’t Walk Away” to the musical number for “All Over the World,” in which Kelly brings some New Wave mannequins to life to go clothes shopping, and the messiest, most chaotic musical number in history ensues. At one point a man in spider-themed makeup crawls toward the camera between the cobweb nylon leggings of other dancers, as though auditioning for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Like the entire film, each moment is edited with the flashiest possible wipe, as supplied by your local high school A.V. club.

Sonny (Michael Beck) tries to convince Zeus to allow Kira to stay with him on Earth.

Sonny (Michael Beck) tries to convince Zeus to allow Kira to stay with him on Earth.

When Kira is summoned back to Mount Olympus, which is a garish Joust world of neon oranges, reds, and yellows, Sonny chases after her by roller skating at full force directly into a brick mural. (It’s easy to imagine what the alternate ending of Xanadu might have been.) Before the cosmic voices of Zeus (Wilfred Hyde-White, My Fair Lady) and Hera (Coral Browne, Auntie Mame), Sonny pleads the case for mortal love, and at last Kira is permitted to return to Earth just in time for the club’s opening. Newton-John performs a “Xanadu” medley while switching through various styles and costumes (hard rocker, country music singer, New Wave alien with a blue wig). It’s hard to come away from Xanadu questioning Newton-John’s talent. She can dance with Gene Kelly, hit every high note, swing about on roller skates, act the doe-eyed innocent in one scene and the sweaty sex kitten in the next. She’s as convincing a Muse as you’ll ever see in leg warmers. But what Xanadu as a whole inspires I leave up to you.

Xanadu

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First Men in the Moon (1964)

Posted on March 22, 2015 at 2:39 pm by Jeff Kuykendall

First Men in the Moon

First Men in the Moon (1964), an adaptation of the 1901 novel by H.G. Wells, presented Ray Harryhausen with the opportunity to return to science fiction following a visit to Greek mythology in the career-best Jason and the Argonauts (1963). One could argue he had been absent from the genre for longer than that: Mysterious Island (1961), though ostensibly a work of science fiction, leans harder on elements of fantasy adventure like his prior films The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). With the powers of Cavorite, Harryhausen now breaks free of the Earth’s gravitational pull and heads for the Moon to uncover the secret underground city of the Selenites. (All right, perhaps there’s a good deal of fantasy adventure here too.) The film reunited Harryhausen with two recurring collaborators: producer Charles H. Schneer, who had worked with him since It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), and director Nathan Juran of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and 2o Million Miles to Earth (1957). Absent, unfortunately, was composer Bernard Herrmann, though Laurie Anderson of the TV series The Avengers ably fills in. The screenplay was co-authored by Nigel Kneale, famous for creating Professor Quatermass; Kneale’s classic script for Quatermass and the Pit (1967) seems to borrow a few ideas from Wells and his Selenites. Really the only thing which seems a bit out of place is the infrequent use of stop-motion animation. We are an hour and twelve minutes into the film before the first stop-motion creation appears – the Mooncalf, a caterpillar-like creature with pincers which the Selenites put down with a laser gun. But except in certain brief shots, the Selenites themselves are not stop-motion, but actors in occasionally shoddy-looking costumes.

A Mooncalf, on a rampage, is zapped by Selenites.

A Mooncalf, on a rampage, is zapped by Selenites.

It’s easy to see why the decision was made to present so many scenes with the Selenites as costumed actors: it was difficult enough for Harryhausen to animate seven living skeletons at once in Jason and the Argonauts; imagine trying to populate a city of aliens by the same method. Harryhausen has stated as much; in his Film Fantasy Scrapbook (1981) he wrote, “I have never been an advocate of ‘men in suits’ to represent animaloid creatures, but with our project the script called for masses of insect-like beings swarming over the Space Sphere. To avoid an eternity in animating the creatures en masse, I found it necessary to build insect suits in which we placed small children.” But that was not the only reason that stop motion is scarce in First Men in the Moon. Columbia insisted the film be shot in widescreen Panavision, for which Harryhausen had not adapted his “Dynamation” process. The time spent trying to make his animation work for widescreen meant sacrificing some of the planned FX sequences. He writes in An Animated Life (2003), “Among the lost sequences was a scene in which the scientists are ‘put to sleep’ and stored for when next they are required. The sequence would have shown them being ‘filed away’ by a machine that raised each Selenite up to its own hexagonal honeycomb-like chamber.” Nonetheless, the effects sequences which survive have the usual Harryhausen awe. The awe is perhaps amplified by the amount of time it takes to reach the Moon and finally encounter the fantastic. In particular I admire the moment when our proto-astronauts stumble across a massive metallic dome in the surface of the Moon, which opens slowly with the promise of an alien civilization below. The light slapstick comedy of the film’s Victorian-themed first half has come to an abrupt end, and now we are confronted with the potentially hostile unknown. It’s Harryhausen’s homage to the gates that lead to the interior jungle of Skull Island in King Kong (1933).

The astronauts discover an entrance to the underground Selenite city.

The astronauts discover an entrance to the underground Selenite city.

By 1964, Wells’ novel was six decades old, the science was dusty, and the space race was setting its sights on a real lunar landing. When presented with this challenge, Nigel Kneale had a clever conceit for his adaptation: he would set his prologue in the present day and show humans setting foot on the moon for “the first time.” Then he would wittily undercut the achievement with the discovery a British flag awaiting the astronauts on a moon rock. (Something similar, albeit considerably more surreal, is used at the start of Karel Zeman’s wonderful 1961 film The Fabulous Baron Munchausen.) Evidence discovered on the Moon leads investigators to track down Englishman Arnold Bedford (Edward Judd, The Day the Earth Caught Fire), now in a nursing home, but eager to recount the first actual voyage to the Moon. The film can then take place in an extended flashback, in 1899 – which feels thematically appropriate since so many Wells, Jules Verne, and other Victorian-era fantasies are recounted via a framing device and a first-person account of events that have already transpired. Bedford, in deep debt, attaches himself to Joseph Cavor (Lionel Jeffries, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), a scientist whom everyone believes is a crackpot, but who has just invented an anti-gravity substance which he calls Cavorite – and which can be painted onto any object to make it launch into the air. Bedford hopes to make a fortune off his investment in the discovery, though his fiancée Kate Callender (Martha Hyer, Some Came Running) is skeptical, and Cavor is more interested in a trip to the Moon than making money. The premise is that different panels painted with the Cavorite will draw the “Sphere” capsule toward the gravitational pulls of either the Moon, the Earth, or the Sun. Bedford finally agrees to Cavor’s plans, and when Kate stumbles into the site of the launch, placing herself in immediate danger, she’s hastily pulled aboard.

Lionel Jeffries as Joseph Cavor, inventor of Cavorite.

Lionel Jeffries as Joseph Cavor, inventor of Cavorite.

Although the film’s first half places a bit too much emphasis on exaggerated comedy (see 1959’s Journey to the Center of the Earth for a much better balance of a similar formula), there’s still some charm in the film’s deliberately smash-bang approach to its steampunk scientific exploration. We don’t see Cavor trying to make the complex trajectory calculations to land his craft on the Moon, and when it comes to the problem of lack of oxygen, Cavor settles on diving suits. The launch and extremely violent crash on the Moon’s surface (softened only somewhat by opening those panels which reach back out toward the Earth’s gravity – er, somehow) are dealt with by grabbing tight to hammocks that dangle from the ceiling. The Sphere rolls for a good distance until it collides with some rocks, and Cavor, Bedford, and Kate are sprawled out unconscious. Good show! But by far, the back half of the film is the most interesting, as the tone darkens somewhat. Cavor grows increasingly frustrated at the Colonialist instincts of Bedford and Kate (she insists they bring an elephant gun to the Moon), and tries – and fails – to halt any violence between the explorers and the Selenites. This culminates in a scene in which he explains the concept of war to the “Grand Lunar,” who is understandably perturbed. Cavor would prefer to stay among the Selenites, and does so after we’re treated to an extended journey through the honeycomb-like caverns decorated with towering crystals, and with mineral-based technology that, at one point, acts as an X-ray on Kate so we can see her as another of Harryhausen’s trademark skeletons. If the film still seems a little short on Harryhausen-ness, at least it is infused with the spirit of H.G. Wells. Bedford and Kate’s desperate escape from the lunar kingdom recalls the escape from the Morlocks at the end of The Time Machine (in particular the 1960 adaptation), and a final twist borrows from The War of the Worlds, with a wink.

First Men in the Moon

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Krull (1983)

Posted on March 13, 2015 at 3:03 pm by Jeff Kuykendall

Krull

I never saw Krull (1983) in the theater, though I was aware of it – I have a childhood recollection of being mesmerized by a “making of” special on TV. But shortly after its home video release my father rented it, watched it on his own, and thus bequeathed it to me, mumbling: “You should watch this. You’d like it.” Well I did. I duped it VCR-to-VCR so I could have my own personal copy. My mother bought me the Krull Activity Book, so I could solve Krull puzzles. I played the Krull arcade game and never made it past the rock climbing. I drew the characters obsessively. For what seemed like many years, Krull was, to me, every bit the equal of the Star Wars films. When you’re that young and obsessed with fantasy and science fiction, whether a film features a cyclops is much more important than the qualities of the script. Even better, Krull was both fantasy and science fiction. The title is actually the name of a medieval-themed planet – with twin suns a la Tatooine – and the villainous Beast is an alien from another world. The Slayers, the black-armored, dome-headed alien creatures that serve as this film’s Stormtroopers, have spears that operate as blasters. They shoot bright blue beams and make pew-pew noises. And, of course, there is the Glaive, which is little more than an elaborate ninja star which the hero can control with his mind. Because it was the 80’s. But most of all – cyclops!

Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony) explores the Black Fortress.

Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony) explores the Black Fortress.

When I revisited the film years ago, I was disillusioned. I had the dialogue and every beat of action so deeply ingrained from the numbingly repetitive viewing of childhood that nothing could surprise me, and worse, none of it was as good as I remembered: it was hammy and the plot and characters paper-thin. So on this latest viewing I approached with greater caution. The impetus was reading Michael Moorcock’s Elric fantasy novel The Vanishing Tower (1970), which features a fortress that appears in a world for only a brief period of time before magically relocating to another world, another dimension in Moorcock’s “multiverse.” And it all came back to me, like a repressed memory: the Black Fortress from Krull. It’s a very similar concept. The Black Fortress, which is simultaneously a castle, a mountain, and an interplanetary ship, teleports itself from one end of the planet Krull to the other at every sun(s)rise. Within dwells the Beast, and in one of the film’s clever conceits, we only glimpse bits of him directly, though the architecture suggests parts of his monstrous anatomy: a clawed hand, an eye, a spinal column, teeth. When the Beast and his Slayers capture Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony, Without a Clue), she tests the boundaries of the Black Fortress, wandering through its surreal corridors of organ-and-bone like an inner-space explorer in an H.R. Giger adaptation of Fantastic Voyage. The Beast itself, which seems heavily influenced by Giger’s Alien, is finally revealed in the climax, though director Peter Yates (Bullitt) depicts him through a distorting lens that stretches out his body and makes you feel like you’ve got your contact lenses in backward.

Rell the Cyclops (Bernard Bresslaw) and bandit Kegan (Liam Neeson).

Rell the Cyclops (Bernard Bresslaw) and bandit Kegan (Liam Neeson).

The scenes in the Black Fortress are certainly the most visually striking and inventive, though much of Krull takes place in a gray, rocky landscape (shot on location in Italy) as Colwyn (Ken Marshall, of the 1982-83 Marco Polo miniseries) – a prince who has just become a king after the Slayers kill his father – launches a quest to rescue the princess. Offering guidance is the only other survivor of the castle massacre, the wise Ynyr (Freddie Jones, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed), who tells Colwyn that his only hope in defeating the Beast will be acquiring the legendary weapon called the Glaive. This leads to a prolonged rock climbing sequence (fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000‘s Lost Continent, brace yourselves) before Colwyn enters a fissure in a granite wall and finds the Glaive in a stream of lava. Colwyn reaches in and retrieves the weapon unharmed – passing some kind of Arthurian test, it seems. With his Excalibur in hand, he faces his next challenge: trying to determine where the Black Fortress will appear next, and to catch up with it before it vanishes. He gathers allies along the way, including a comic-relief wizard named Ergo (David Battley, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) and a band of robbers so recently escaped from a dungeon that they still wear their manacles. The robbers are led by the jaded Torquil (an excellent Alun Armstrong, The Duelists). Among their ranks you might recognize Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane, though their screen time is unfortunately limited. Finally, Colwyn recruits the “Blind Emerald Seer” (John Welsh, The Revenge of Frankenstein), his boy assistant Titch (Graham McGrath), and Rell the Cyclops (Bernard Bresslaw, Jabberwocky).

The Crystal Spider, guarding the Widow of the Web.

The Crystal Spider, guarding the Widow of the Web.

The cyclops is a pretty cool creation, both in makeup design and in conception. It’s explained that his race originates on another planet, and his people made a bargain with the Beast: they would trade one eye to receive the gift of foresight; unfortunately, they’re only able to see the moment of their own death. So Rell is a gloomy creature, but also a loyal companion who quickly earns the warriors’ trust. As they travel across Krull, Colwyn’s company battles the Slayers, who squeal like rabid Muppets when they die, their dome heads cracking open as a bloody slug slithers off into the ground. They also face black-eyed “Changelings” – shape-shifters with long claws – in one of Krull‘s many scenes that feel more horror than SF or fantasy. To discover the location of the Black Fortress, Ynyr must brave a visit to the Widow of the Web (Francesca Annis, of Roman Polanski’s Macbeth), his ex-lover who now lives at the center of a giant cobweb spun by a Crystal Spider. The spider is some nice stop-motion animation from Steven Archer, who was one of Ray Harryhausen’s assistants on Clash of the Titans (1981). Colwyn and friends must also tame the Fire Mares, horses that not only travel so fast that fire sparks from their hooves, but have the gift of flight. It’s not until Colwyn confronts the Beast that he breaks out the Glaive, throwing it like a boomerang or a Tron discus, and since the Beast retaliates with bolts of light shooting from his jaws, it’s pretty obvious why the film was quickly adapted into a video game.

Invading the Black Fortress.

Krull, through adult eyes, is a very mixed bag. It has shining virtues and equally obvious flaws. On the downside is the script: the stale “rescue the princess” plot is told humorlessly, lacking the relative subversiveness of Star Wars (Princess Leia can handle herself just fine once she has a blaster in hand). Colwyn and Lyssa are the least interesting characters in the film, even though apparently their newlywed love is so strong that it allows Colwyn to turn his hand into a flamethrower, shooting lethal fire forged in their marital bond (yes, spoilers, that actually happens). Even Neeson and Coltrane, with only a few minutes of combined screen time, seem to have more defined characters to play. To be fair, Lysette Anthony, who has gone on to a solid acting career, does what she can with very little – but in an era in which big-budget pulp fantasy throwbacks made room for strong, fully-realized female characters (Princess Leia, Conan the Barbarian‘s Valeria, Dragonslayer‘s Valerian), the inattention to Lyssa is inexcusable. Make no mistake: this is a fantasy aimed at young boys, not young girls. And when I was a young boy, I wanted nothing more than to rescue the princess with a cyclops at my side and a Glaive on my belt.

Titch (Graham McGrath) and Ergo the Magnificent, transformed into a tiger.

Titch (Graham McGrath) and Ergo the Magnificent, transformed into a tiger.

Look past the bland Colwyn and Lyssa plotline and you’ll find that it’s the comic relief character that is the most rewarding- rather surprisingly, for a genre film. David Battley’s Ergo the Magnificent promises to be insufferable when he’s first introduced (accidentally transforming himself into a goose), but he proves to have more layers, first when he overcomes his superstitious fear to befriend Rell, and then as he begins to bond with young Titch. Ergo asks the child what he’d spend a wish on. Titch says he’d want a puppy. “Only one puppy?” says Ergo. “If you’re wishing, why not wish for a hundred?” “I only want one,” says Titch, and Ergo declares matter-of-factly, “Well, that’s a foolish wish.” When Titch is abruptly orphaned, the Emerald Seer slain by a Changeling, Colwyn smiles as he tells him, “We’re your family now,” and then walks away. (Gee thanks, Colwyn.) Ergo hides himself in the brush and uses a spell to turn himself into a puppy, which Titch, knowingly, holds close as they continue their journey. It’s Rell who catches the puppy slipping off quietly and transforming back into Ergo. “I still think it’s a foolish wish,” Ergo mutters to him. As a kid, that scene didn’t mean much to me. As an adult, that’s the moment that stands out more than the spectacular Pinewood Studio sets, the avant-garde art design, the genre-mashing special effects, or the grand score by James Horner (Aliens). More of that across the board, and Krull would have stood much taller in what was a golden age of fantasy spectacles.

Krull

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