The Masque of the Red Death

 Year of Release:  1964

Director:  Roger Corman

Screenplay:  Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell, based on the short stories "The Masque of the Red Death" and "Hop-Frog" by Edgar Allan Poe

Starring:  Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher

Running Time:  90 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Medieval Italy, a pestilence called the "Red Death" ravages the countryside.  The evil Prince Prospero (Price) and his friends and courtiers hole up in his palatial castle to wait out the epidemic.  To pass the time, Prospero decrees a lavish masquerade to be held.

This was the seventh of producer/director Roger Corman's series of eight films based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and is widely regarded as the best of the bunch.  The script co-written by horror author and Twilight Zone veteran Charles Beaumont and screenwriter R. Wright Campbell combines elements from two Poe stories, "The Masque of the Red Death" and "Hop-Frog" about the brutal vengeance of an abused jester (which makes up the film's main subplot).  Vincent Price who is often seen as very hammy actor, here gives a very strong performance of quiet, silky malevolence.  He is really magnetic here and shows what a good actor he was.  Hazel Court plays Juliana his ill-treated consort, who seeks supernatural vengeance, and Jane Asher plays Francesca, the innocent peasant girl who Prospero seeks to corrupt.  The extraordinarily strange Patrick Magee (best known for his roles in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Barry Lyndon (1975)) plays one of Prospero's most depraved friends.  The film's nominal heroes, David Weston as Francesca's square-jawed lover, and Nigel Green as her noble father, barely register.  The film boasts higher production values that the usual Corman effort, and has strong images, with striking colour photography from cameraperson and future director Nicolas Roeg.  There is real atmosphere in the film, with some dashes of sixties psychedelia.  There are some baffling supernatural elements that don't really work, but this is one of Roger Corman's strongest films.

       Vincent Price and Jane Asher in The Masque of the Red Death

Barry Lyndon

Year of Release:  1975
Director:  Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay:  Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray
Starring:  Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Krüger, Diana Koerner, Gay Hamilton
Running Time:  187 minutes
Genre:  Period drama

In 18th Century Ireland, headstrong Redmond Barry (O'Neal), believing that he has killed an English officer in a duel, leaves his home to seek his fortune.  He embarks on many adventures as a soldier, spy, professional gambler, con-man in his quest to become one of the gentry.

This is possibly Stanley Kubrick's most underrated film, coming between the controversial A Clockwork Orange (1971) and the horror classic The Shining (1980).  However, this ravishingly beautiful period drama is one of Kubrick's finest works, and in my opinion it is a masterpiece.  It's based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray, who is possibly best known for writing Vanity Fair (1848).  Kubrick turned to the book when his planned film about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte fell apart, and was able to incorporate that he had already done about the 1800s into this film.  It's a film of two parts, divided by chapter headings, the first part dealing with Barry's scheming and adventures to achieve wealth and status, and the much darker second part is more of a domestic drama as everything falls apart.  While this stately film may not be as obviously groundbreaking as other Kubrick films, it is still innovative is several respects, perhaps most notably the technique filmmakers devised to allow scenes to be lit solely by candlelight.   Almost every scene in the film is like a painting you feel you could hang on your wall.  Ryan O'Neal plays Barry from a gauche, reckless young man, to cynical antihero, and ultimately tragic figure, with a kind of icy charisma, Marisa Berenson plays the unlucky Lady Lyndon  as a fragile, tragic character, hiding depths behind her blank, mask-like face.  Barry's stepson Lord Bullingdon is played by Leon Vitali, who would later become Kubrick's assistant, and if you have any interest at all in Kubrick or film-making, the documentary about Vitali, Filmworker (2017), is a must-see.  Michael Hordern's narration provides a witty, ironic commentary on the events on screen, a departure from the novel which is narrated by Barry himself.  The soundtrack uses classical music from Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Schubert among others, and Irish folk music

"It was in the reign of George III that these personages lived and quarreled.  Good or bad, beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now."

           

Ill met by candlelight in Barry Lyndon

A Clockwork Orange

Year of Release:  1971
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay:  Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Starring:  Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Adrienne Corri, Miriam Karlin
Running Time:  136 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, crime

Near future England:  Teenage gang leader Alex (McDowell) leads his three friends (or "droogs") on nightly rampages of theft and savage violence against whoever is unlucky enough to encounter them.  Tiring of Alex's arrogance, his friends set him up to be arrested after their latest attack goes fatally wrong.  Alex is convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in prison.  After two years inside, Alex is submitted to an experimental treatment called the "Ludovico Technique" which is intended to cure criminality by making the subject unable to act violently.  Alex is released after the treatment and soon finds that where he was once the predator, he is now the prey.

This is hugely controversial film which is now acclaimed as a modern classic.  It is still a shocking film, in fact I would say that it would probably not get made today. because it would just be too problematic, with the way sexual violence is presented.  Not necessarily because of the on-screen violence, which is heavily stylised and more shadowplay than graphic blood and gore, but because we are invited to like and sympathise with a  brutal, unrepentant rapist and murderer.  The entire film is shown through Alex's eyes, and he breaks the fourth wall with his voice-over narration (addressing the audience directly as "my brothers and only friends").  The first part of the film, depicting Alex's crimes is heavily stylised, whereas the latter part of the film, where Alex becomes the victim, the violence is much more realistically depicted thereby inviting the audience to enjoy Alex's rampages at a distance, but to sympathise with his own sufferings.  Which is, of course, how Alex would see it.  Also there is the towering performance of Malcolm McDowell as Alex, alternately threatening and innocent, fearsome and funny, it is a career best performance, and he is in pretty much every scene of the film.  No-one else really gets to make much of an impact in the film, or even get a lot of screen time.
The film is relatively faithful to the novel, although it discards the final chapter of the original, British version of the book.  There are some odd elements in regards to the book, in which Alex's age is stated as being fourteen.  Malcolm McDowell was in his late twenties when he made the film, and yet he is constantly referred to as a child, despite being clearly an adult.
The film depicts a very seventies future, and it really is a product of it's time and place, it feels more like an alternate early seventies than a futuristic piece.  The novel was written in an invented slang called "Nadsat" and this is memorably retained in the film, although toned down.  Burgess invented nadsat because he felt that if he wrote it in then-current slang then novel would feel dated as soon as it was published, and he was right.
Alex has a deep love of classical music (especially Beethoven) and music is used throughout the film, often contrasting with the images on screen.  One of the film's most notorious scenes has McDowell singing "Singin' in the Rain" while he brutally attacks a husband and wife (Patrick Magee and Adrienne Corri).
The film was famously withdrawn from release in Britain by Kubrick himself and was not legally available there until after his death.

Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange