Touch of Evil

 Year:  1958

Director:  Orson Welles

Screenplay:  Orson Welles, based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson

Starring:  Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabor

Running Time:  111 minutes

Genre:  Crime, thriller, film noir

In an unnamed town on the Mexican-U.S. border, a wealthy American businessman and his girlfriend are killed by a bomb planted in the car.  Upstanding Mexican cop Miguel Vargas (Heston) and his new bride, Susie (Leigh), witness the explosion and cut short their honeymoon while Vargas becomes drawn into the investigation, coming up against powerful, corrupt police captain Hank Quinlan (Welles).

This is one of the best, as well as one of the last, of the classic film noir.  The term film noir was coined by French film critics to describe a run of stylish American thrillers and crime dramas that featured bleak, cynical and often nihilistic attitudes, and which flourished in the 1940s and '50s.  Based on the 1956 novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson, this is a surprisingly dark thriller, with it's striking visuals, including run-down locations, off-kilter camera angles, extreme close-ups, grotesque characters, and stark, black and white photography, the film has a genuinely nightmarish feel.  The main flaw is its racially insensitive casting, with white actors, such as Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich, cast as Mexican characters.  Although it is worth pointing out that the Mexican Vargas (albeit played by Heston) is the noble hero, while the white American Quinlan is the chief antagonist.  In the character of Hank Quinlan, Orson Welles creates one of the screen's most memorable monsters.  A racist, corrupt cop who plants evidence to frame suspects, and has all the powerful people in the town in his pocket, and who seem to orbit him like satellites around a planet.  The ageing, gargantuan Quinlan, an alcoholic, who constantly eats candy bars, and walks with a cane, he seems almost to be falling apart in front of our eyes, and yet there are flickers of the tattered remnants of nobility in his small, narrow eyes, and in his relationship with ex-lover Tana (Marlene Dietrich under very heavy makeup), who appears to be the only person who really knows and cares about him, there is a kind of tenderness, making him more damaged than truly evil.  A miscast Charlton Heston (who looks kind of like a young Sean Connery here) is okay, and Janet Leigh is good as Vargas' new wife, Susie, even if she doesn't have much to do.  The scene where she is attacked in a remote motel almost foreshadows her most famous role in Psycho (1962).  The film was taken away from Welles and re-edited by the studio without his approval.  For example, in Welles' version there are no opening credits, and the film opens with a famous sequence where a ticking time bomb is placed in the boot of a car.  An unsuspecting couple get in the car and drive off.  We follow the car through the streets, there is no score, instead we hear street sounds:  Music spilling from bars and restaurants, police whistles, car noises, muffled conversations, and then the car explodes.  In the release version, the credits are splashed over Welles' carefully composed shots, and the street sounds replaced by loud, brassy music.  A furious Welles penned a 58 page memo outlining his vision for the film.  In 1998, the film was restored and re-edited according to Welles' instructions.  Now it can be seen for the masterpiece it is.

Orson Welles, Victor Millan, Joseph Calleia and Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil

The Manchurian Candidate

Year of Release: 1962

Director:  John Frankenheimer

Screenplay:  George Axelrod, based on the novel The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon

Starring:  Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, James Gregory

Running Time:  126 minutes

Genre:  Thriller

Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Harvey) returns from the Korean War with the Medal of Honor and finds himself hailed as a hero, a position which his ruthless mother (Lansbury) and stepfather (Gregory), an ambitious politician, proceed to take full advantage of.  However Shaw and other members of his former platoon, including Captain Bennett Marco (Sinatra), suffer the same recurring nightmare.  Marco becomes convinced that something happened to them in Korea, and his investigation proceeds to uncover a disturbing conspiracy.

This is one of the classic Cold War thrillers.  Despite being made 60 years ago, and being very much a product of it's time, this still feels relevant today, with the central premise of a hostile power influencing democracy is disturbingly prescient, particularly when the chosen candidate is a populist rightwing fool.  Laurence Harvey turns in a great performance as the tormented, brainwashed Raymond Shaw, and Frank Sinatra, who really was a great actor, is fantastic as the haunted Captain Marco.  Janet Leigh doesn't really have anything to do, in her few scenes as Sinatra's love interest, but Angela Lansbury turns in a terrifying performance as the utterly ruthless Eleanor Iselin, who will do anything to gain political power, and seems to have a very unhealthy relationship with her son (which apparently was toned down from the book).  Directed by John Frankenheimer, the film uses skewed camera angles, reflective of Shaw's distorted frame of mind.  The brainwashing itself is played out in almost surrealistic dream sequences. While it drags in places, this still holds up as a disturbing, paranoid thriller, and for a big studio film from 1962, it does get quite surprisingly dark.  The film was remade in 2004, directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Denzel Washington.      

Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian candidate

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

Year: 1998
Director: Steve Miner
Screenplay: Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg, from a story by Robert Zappia and Kevin Williamson (uncredited), based on characters created by John carpenter and Debra Hill
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Adam Arkin, Michelle Williams, Adam Hann-Byrd, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, LL Cool J, Janet Leigh
Running Time: 86 minutes
Genre: Horror, slasher

Summary: In 1978 seventeen year old Laurie Strode (Curtis) narrowly escaped the murderous rampage of her psychopathic brother Michael Myers (Chris Durand).
In 1998, Laurie is now living under the name "Keri Tate" with her seventeen year old son John (Hartnett), and is working as Headmistress of the prestigious Hillcrest Academy High School private boarding school, which her son attends. She is also dating the school's guidance counsellor Will (Arkin). However Laurie is a recovering alcoholic, still haunted by the memory of her experience and suffers from horrible nightmares, especially when Halloween rolls around. Despite most people believeing that Michael Myers is dead, Laurie is convinced that he is still out there somehwere. Angry at his mother's overprotectiveness, John and his girlfriend Molly (Williams) decide to team up with their friends Charlie (Hann-Byrd) and Sarah (O'Keefe) and take advantage of the rest of the school taking a camping trip to Yosemite National Park over the Halloween holiday in order to have the school to themselves. However, it turns out that Laurie's fears are correct. Michael Myers has tracked her down and, on Halloween night, he arrives at Hillcrest Academy to finish what he started.

Opinions: This film is the sixth sequel to the classic horror film Halloween (1978). The film only really ties in to the original Halloween and Halloween II (1981), completely ignoring the other films as if they never happened, which is probably for the best. The film is also very heavily influenced by the hugely successful Scream (1996) and it's first sequel (themselves very heavily influenced by Halloween). Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first two Scream movies, did uncredited rewrites on the script to Halloween H20, and has an executive producer credit, it was also made by the same studio that made Scream, features some of the same music, and even features a brief clip from Scream 2 (1997). They also feature a very similar style as Halloween H20 also mixes scares, jokes and pop culture references, it also includes Michelle Williams who starred in the hugely successful television series Dawson's Creek (1998-2003) which was created by Kevin Williamson. Which all means that the film belongs squarely in the typical style of late 1990s teen horror films.
The film concentrates more on the "stalk" and less on the "slash" than many of the previous installments, which hearkens back to the first film. It means that the viewer spends time with the characters and gets to like them before they get turned into sushi. Directed by Steve Miner, who also directed Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) and Friday the 13 Part III (1982), there is extensive use of a mobile floating camera which constantly gives the impression of the characters being stalked or tracked by the camera itself. The film also recognises that Michael Myers, who is a kind of limited villain, being more like a supernatural version of the Terminator, works much better when he is kept largely off-screen, frequently glimpsed briefly in the background or through open doors. In fact when Laurie Strode first encounters Myers in the film, she has to pause for a few seconds to convince herself that it is not one of her nightmare or hallucinations.
The scares are mostly effective and there are several good shock moments, even if the gore is probably too limited to appeal to the gorehounds.
The acting in the film is good, and the cast are engaging. Janet Leigh (in real life the mother of Jamie Lee Curtis), and who has also had previous experience of knife-weilding maniacs in the film Psycho (1960), appears briefly as a schoolteacher. It also has an appearance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a hockey mask wearing teen.
Aside from the original film, this is definitely the best in the series, and is a good slice of entertaining horror, featuring good performances, some decent shocks and plenty of humour.



Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) faces up to Michael Myers (Chris Durand) in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

Psycho

Year: 1960
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay: Joseph Stefano, based on the novel Psycho by Robert Bloch
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Martin Balsam
Running Time: 109 minutes
Genre: Horror, crime, thriller, drama

Summary: Phoenix, Arizona: Marion Crane (Leigh), a secretary at an estate agents, steals $40,000 from one of her employer's clients, and drives off to meet her divorced boyfriend, Sam Loomis (Gavin), at his California home. On the road, Marion becomes increasingly paranoid about getting caught and what might happen to her. Eventually in the middle of a heavy rainstorm, tiredness forces her to seek shelter for the night in the remote Bates Motel. The place is owned and managed by a shy young man named Norman Bates (Perkins) who tells her that he lives with his invalid mother in the large, run-down house that overlooks the motel. Marion overhears a furious argument about her between Norman and his mother. After talking to Norman, Marion decides to return to Phoenix the next day to return the money. First of all however, she decides to take a shower. Big mistake.


Opinions: This movie is probably one of the most influential ever made. It's easy to forget after all the sequels, remakes, parodies and references as well as the slew of imitations, just how good the original is. The story is structured in a way where if you didn't know the film it looks as if it's going to be about a woman who steals some money. For the first 45 minutes or so the film follows Marion exclusively and events are seen from her point of view and then it takes a sudden turn with probably the most famous sequence in cinema history and becomes something else entirely.
The script was written by Joseph Stefano (who subsequently became known for creating the classic television series The Outer Limits (1963-1965)) based on a 1959 novel by prolific horror and thriller author Robert Bloch. The book was inspired by the real-life Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein (whose activities also inspired The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991)). The film follows the basic storyline of the book pretty closely but with a few basic changes. The novel focuses mainly on Norman Bates and many of the events are seen through his eyes. Also Norman is a much more sympathetic character in the film than in the book. Incidentally, at the time of writing the screenplay, Stefano was undergoing therapy about his own relationship with his mother.
The movie features a brilliant central performance from Anthony Perkins as the tormented Norman, who manages to be both sinister and sympathetic at the same time. In fact he is quite a likeable character which makes his actions all the more startling. Anthony Perkins, who at the time was best known as a pop singer and a romantic lead, suffered from typecasting due to the immense success of Psycho but stated afterwards that he would still have taken the role even if he knew that he would be typecast. The film also had it's main "name" star, Janet Leigh, killed off towards the middle of the movie, which was a really shocking move for the time. This is said to be the reason behind Hitchcock's heavily promoted "requirement" that no-one was allowed to be admitted in to see Psycho once the film had begun. This was highly unusual for the time when people were in the habt of wandering into films whenever they felt like it, but Hitchcock felt that if people came in during the second half of the film expecting to see Janet Leigh and she did not appear, then they would feel cheated.
Of course everyone knows about the famous shower sequence which is a masterpiece of direction, editing and scoring. The scene runs for about three minutes and includes about fifty cuts, and it is done in a way where you think that it is more violent than it actually is. You see the shower head, Janet Leigh screaming, and you see the knife stabbing, but you never see any actual contact. The only blood in the scene is seen swirling down the plughole. Coupled with Bernard Herrmann's legendary strings-only score, it is one of the greatest scenes in film history. The censors initially asked for the scene to be cut, because they thought that Leigh's breasts were visible. Hitchcock simply resubmitted the film again without touching it and it was passed uncut. People who have way too much time on their hands have analysed the scene frame by frame for a glimpse of the offending breast but, as far as I know, they have been unsuccessful. Apparently after watching the scene, Janet Leigh refused to take showers unless she absolutely had to, and then she would lock all her doors and windows and leave the shower and bathroom door open.
There is another story that Hitchock received a letter from an angry father who said that his daughter refused to take a bath after seeing the 1955 film Les Diaboliques and now refused to take showers after seeing Psycho. "How am I supposed to get her clean?" the outraged man demanded.
"Take her to the drycleaners," replied Hitch.
The film also features a startling second murder, which is in it's own way as memorable as the shower scene, and it also has a strong vein of humour running through it.
Alfred Hitchcock has a small cameo in the film as a man wearing a stetson who is seen standing outside the window of the real estate agency where Marion works.
This was also the first film to feature a shot of a toilet flushing, which also caused some trouble with the censors, and was removed for some international prints.
The film is often stated as being the first of the slasher movie subgenre of horror.
The film was followed by two direct sequels and a made for television prequel. It was also pointlessly remade in 1998 by Gus Van Sant. The original is a classic and is well worth checking out by anyone. If you've never seen it, then definitely see it, and if you have seen it, then see it again.


"We all go a little mad sometimes." - Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Psycho



"Have you got the shower working yet?" Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh in Psycho