American comedy films starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.
A pair of men are in different situations, using the same comedic themes.
I watched a ton of these, but not all. Let's start with a list of what I saw and whether I liked them:
Meet the Mummy (1955) no
Dance with Me, Henry (1956) yes
Keep 'em Flying (1941) no
Little Giant (1946) yes
Lost in Alaska (1952) yes
Mexican Hayride (1948) no
Pardon My Sarong (1942) no
The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1947) no
Who Done it? (1942 NO!
Buck Privates (1941) yes
Go to Mars (1953) YES!
Meet the Keystone Kops (1955) no
Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942) yes
In the Foreign Legion (1950) no
Jack and the Beanstalk (1952) no
Meet Captain Kidd (1952) no
Go to Mars was the best, without a doubt. I was actually laughing about some of the parts. There was a memorable scene in the spaceship in space. Everything including dialogue was slowed down and costello tries to fire a agun, only to find that the bullet drops from the barrel. Although Pardon My Sarong was a crap film, there was a song and dance number called "Shout Brother Shout" which had people dancing on a slippery table. The dancers would slide across the table in an impressive manner and continue dancing. In the Foreign Legion had a fishing scene I liked. Abbott was catching fish and handing them to Costello to clean. Costello dips them in the water they came from and a larger fish wearing human dentures eats them. In Little Giant, Costello is explaining how he figured out how many vacuum cleaners to sell. He does some convoluted math on a chalkboard which clearly took some advanced planning. Who Done it? was the worst because comedy and murder mystery do not mix well. Almost 80 years later, these predictable and repetitive genres mix less well. I liked how Lou Costello could play any musical instrument and the beautiful women always liked him. There were many repeated comedic themes:
Costello mistakes a word for another word
Someone doesn't look at what is happening
Costello handcuffs a man behind his back, but the man gets loose
Costello sees something, gets Abbott to look and by then it has moved
Costello sees something important, but is freaking out and unable to speak
The 2 are working as a team, with Costello undoing Abbott's work
Abbott is mean to Costello until his apparent death, but Costello hears him mourning the loss of his best friend he stole from, cheated, bonked on the head, insulted, knocked down...
I'm rating these tolerable. As a whole, the series was intolerable. Too old, hokey and repetitive. There were moments which made it all worthwhile. I hope that this explanation is sufficient to explain my long absence. You're probably better off not watching Abbott and Costello, but Go to Mars (1953) is worth seeing.
A Japanese samurai film directed by Kihachi Okamoto, starring Toshiro Mifune.
A ronin who does not know his father is part of a conspiracy to overthrow the current government.
Lots of political intrigue and not much sword fighting. The plot developed very slowly, but this developed the characters very well too. The cinematography was absolutely amazing. I mean like Fire Over England (1937) kind of amazing. You know it looks good when I use 2 images. The 2 hour duration seemed a little long to me because of the slow plot. That's really all there is to say about this film. I rate it o.k.
A British thriller directed by Roman Polanski, starring Catherine Deneuve.
A young woman is afraid of everything, including cracks in the wall. She tries to date a man, but just can't make it work.
This was terrible and boring. I've been working from a list of the "scariest films ever made" and it never ceases to disappoint me. The plot was threadbare and vacant. The characters were not developed at all. The video was alright, if filming this girl being afraid of nothing counts as anything. The most memorable scene was hands coming out of the wall to feel the main character's boobs. The audio was in english and there were no odd noises. Overall, not worth watching. I rate this bad. DO NOT WATCH!!!
A Spanish French horror directed by Jesus Franco.
The daughter of a mad scientist uses a dancer to take revenge of the men who she believes killed her father.
Antiquated and lo-fi. The plot did not hold my attention very well. There were too many characters that were not identifiable enough. Between the scientists/doctors, police/detectives, the women of the Zimmer house and those they murdered, it was just too many people. The video was not bad. The picture is from near the end, when men were fighting on a spiral staircase. The audio was alright except for the science machine sound effects. That got annoying really quickly. Overall, most old horror flicks all blend together to me. I rate this tolerable.
An American war western directed by Sam Peckinpah, starring Charlton Heston, Richard Harris and James Coburn.
A notorious group of Native American Indians are resisting being conquered by white men in a violent manner. A military leader forms an unlikely group of soldiers to deal with the threat.
Boring. Military stuff involving large groups of cavalry do not interest me in the least. Be it a sword and sandal peplum of an American western, I care not. The plot obviously did not even begin to catch my attention and I could not discern many unique characters. The horse thief was the only one who stood out in my view. I noticed unreasonable amounts of underexposure in the video. I could hear all of the dialogue and the music seemed appropriate. I turned this off at 0:43 of 2:10. I'm rating it shit in accordance with my turn off policy.
An American drama directed by Russ Meyer.
A man gets a job working for an evil farmer. The farmer's wife and her father work there and are good people. The man falls in love with the farmer's wife and conflict arises.
This is not what I think of when Russ Meyer is mentioned. It was dramatic and plot-driven instead of violent and sexual. There was some nudity, but it fit into the plot so well that it didn't become a focal point. The plot was actually good and the characters were played very well. It reminded me of some of the older westerns I've seen. The video was in black and white, but managed to show things quite clearly. This is where Russ Meyer's style came in the most. Good shot compositions and appropriate editing made strong statements in many of the scenes. The audio was mostly without music, which I don't like and the actors' voices had a piercing quality. Overall, this would be a better film if it was a western, rather than being set during the American great depression. I rate it o.k.
An American action film directed by Russ Meyer, starring Alex Rocco.
Three miscreants on motorcycles cause big problems in a small town. The local veterinarian decides to deal with this criminal element.
Not so great. The basic plot seemed contrived and not believable. The characters were cast well, but their dialogue didn't seem natural. My overall impression of the story was that it seemed forced. The black and white video was all correctly exposed, even in night shots. However, it seemed a little too jumpy. Maybe there was too much camera movement or the editing was too quick. The soundtrack featured groovy '60s music that I actually liked. Overall, not really worth watching, but not terrible. I rate it tolerable.
An American action film directed by Russ Meyer.
A trio of women driving sports cars challenge a young man to a race. When he loses control of his car, they kill him and kidnap his girlfriend. They then proceed to a desert ranch where an old man lives with his two sons.
I think that this is one of the films that may have influenced Quentin Tarantino's work. The plot was just "GO GO GO" all the time. The characters were unevenly and sparsely developed. I liked the camera-work, but am unable to cite a specific reason. It just seemed to show what was going on very clearly. The audio was a little treble-biased, but not bad. Most of the soundtrack seemed appropriate as well. Overall, not amazing, but pretty cool. I rate it adequate.
An American western directed by James Landis.
A young gunslinger named Billy encounters a gold miner and saves him from indians. They form a partnership, buy land and strike gold. Billy reunites with his father, who is living with the indians and obtains a squaw girlfriend. Back in town, Wild Bill Hickok believes that Billy is Billy The Kid and wants to have a gun duel with him.
I'm Billy Mays, here to share with you the most important product I have ever endorsed, access to affordable health insurance for everyone. This was actually pretty good. The plot was a little complex, but clearly presented and the characters were memorable. The pacing was just right: slow enough to enjoy the film, but speeding up during action sequences. The narrative music was tastefully dispersed through the film at appropriate times. The video was atrocious, being not only pan-and-scanned, but stretched vertically (picture) and extremely grainy. That is an actual screenshot. The audio was decent. It wasn't anything super-fantastic, but I liked this movie. I rate it adequate.
An Italian horror directed by Mario Caiano.
After a man catches his wife cheating on him with the butler, he begins torturing both of them. The wife reveals that she has changed her will to give all of her money to her sister. The man kills his wife, kills the butler and marries the sister. When he brings her to live in his castle, she has horrible nightmares and her doctor is brought in.
This was pretty lame. The simple plot would have fit in a Twilight Zone episode and the characters got confusing somehow. There was an extra woman in the second half (that the murderous husband was having an affair with) who just appears out of nowhere. There were some editing mistakes in the English dubbed version that I watched with the audio not matching the video. The most obvious case was in the end when the dead wife and butler are laughing with their voices, but not their mouths. Overall, I just found it boring. I rate this poor. Watch something else.
An Italian horror directed by Massimo Pupillo.
A crew of photographers and models breaks into a castle to find the owner home. He allows them to do their photo shoot after initially telling them to leave. While they are there, he goes (or they realize that he is) insane and starts killing them in complex ways.
This was so lame that it was almost cool. The '70s audio and video made the style sleazy and cultish. The actresses who wore very little clothing or lost some of what they were wearing helped a great deal. As always, I would have liked to see more than was shown (a.k.a. not enough nudity to award female anatomy points). The complex methods of torture and murder were a little over the top. What comes to mind here is the spider web scene where a man wriggles on the floor for a few minutes while a bound woman tells him not to. The spider was actually the best part of the film to me (picture). The pacing was painfully slow and the special effects were stupid, but there were no editing errors. Overall, it might be fun to mock. I rate it poor.
An American horror western directed by William Beaudine.
The daughter of professor Frankenstein moves her resurrection lab to the American southwest. There she meets Jesse James.
This was absolutely horrid! There really was no plot, just filler and the characters didn't make any difference. The style was very much like an old western. The audio and video were adequate, but that didn't help either. The whole thing is just so stupid and so pointless that I wanted to turn it off. I watched it until the end and I must say that it is one of the worst films ever made. My main gripe is that it was a terrible idea for a movie from the start. The pacing was painfully slow and there were continuity problems too. I rate it shit.
A Russian American science fiction adventure film directed by Pavel Klushantsevand Curtis Harrington, starring Basil Rathbone.
A team of astronauts with a robot crash on Venus and lose communication with their ship. A team with a car are sent to rescue them. Some women are there as well, but have nothing to do with the male astronauts. A female astronaut waits on the ship that the teams came from, which is orbiting the planet.
This is a weird and mislabeled re-edited set of 2 films, but exemplary of old science fiction flicks. In order to fully understand what's going on, you have to watch both. Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women is longer, busier, more chaotic and more complete. Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet is shorter, sparser, more clear, but less complete. Prehistoric Planet does have scenes that were edited out of Prehistoric Women, so you can't just watch one and call it done. We have spaceships landing on a foreign planet with aliens and a robot involved. It meets all of my stereotypical science fiction requirements. How they treat the foreign planet is absurd. Why are they wearing space suits if opening the helmet doesn't kill them instantly? On top of that, those helmets don't look like they make an airtight seal anyway. In the underwater scene, some of the astronauts are just standing around like they're on land while another can't decide if he's underwater or in a low-gravity environment. Their car/vehicle is a joke. Is it a hovercraft? They fill it with water to submerge it and have to drag the stupid thing around in water which some of them sink and others partially float/swim. The robot announcing that he will throw the men off of him because his feet are in lava didn't make any sense at all. When the astronauts with the robot are tired or run out of oxygen, one of them is ranting about mathematics like it will save his life. The robot opens his helmet, puts a pill in his mouth, splashes water on his face and closes the helmet again. What is this supposed to do to save him? Some things just don't make sense, but these antiquated notions about space exploration are what make the film good. I rate this awesome for being so exemplary of '60 science fiction. This is one that you should watch with someone so you can mock it.
A Japanese daikaiju science fiction film directed by Noriaki Yuasa.
After an airplane discharges a nuclear weapon, a giant turtle is awakened by the blast. During an early rampage in search of fire to eat, the giant turtle saves a Japanese boy from falling off a lighthouse. The boy then follows the progress of all the armies of the world to defeat Gamera.
This was not quite as good as the films which feature Gamera as a protagonist because of my fascination with monsters, beasts and creatures in general. The lack of another giant monster to fight effected the film similarly. It was still that same vintage style of cheesy-cool that all giant monster films are. I believe that the band playing the Gamera song was using my favorite guitars, Teiscos. I'm rating this adequate because of these reasons.
A horror directed by William Wyler.A man abducts a woman and imprisons her in his large house in the country. His purpose is to develop a relationship with her, but he is too busy playing prison warden to do so.The production value was TERRIBLE! Fortunately, that was the only bad thing. The small number of characters worked to the film's advantage and the plot kept me interested. The style was a little standard, but not bad. The part that made this stand out from normal '60s films was the ending. It was a little dark for that time period. I'm rating this adequate.
A samurai film by Hideo Gosha.A ronin who killed a counselor is on the run from a group who want to kill him. He becomes partners with a gold poacher and they go to the shogun's mountain where they get involved in the conflicts of the area.The plot really didn't do it for me and the characters were not very unique. Overall, it was just a boring old samurai flick. I'm rating it o.k.
A historical drama by Carol Reed, starring Charlton Heston.Michelangelo is commissioned to paint the Sistine chapel, but does not agree with the pope about the idea.The characters were good, but the plot was mediocre. Charlton Heston acted painting very well and I think he actually painted a few lines himself. This puts the film miles above the ones that feature people pretending to make art or music. You don't want to know how many times I've seen someone fake playing guitar unsuccessfully. I expected more agony and more ecstasy from this film. Michelangelo was definitely shown suffering a little, but not as much as I had hoped. The ecstasy consisted of 1 scene of him looking at some clouds (5 min max). Where did the title emotions go? I'm rating it o.k. and the only thing that saved it from poor was the actor actually painting.
A science fiction directed by Ishiro Honda.A space mission to "Planet X" reveals an alien race with advanced technology and a monster problem. When the Earth people agree to help, they are betrayed by the aliens.The audio was in English and the video was in color.I used to like this movie when I was very young. I remember sitting through what seemed like hours of boring crap to see the cool monsters fighting. Now, I don't even appreciate the monster fights. The model scenes were easy to identify due to English signs on Japanese buildings and the seams in the monster constructions were coming apart during some of the battles. I hold my blog to some high standards, so I'm not going to just let this slide for sentimental reasons. I know a bad movie when I see it and this was definitely below the o.k. range.
A comedy western directed by Elliot Silverstein.When an innocent school teacher's father is killed and the local law men refuse to do anything about it, she forms a band of outlaws.The video looked very 60s and the audio was full of western style songs performed by 2 men who hold instruments as props.check out: the "drunken master" style gunman.Despite the age of this film and the fact that it's almost a musical, I liked it. The characters were developed and the plot was good. I liked the training scene with the drunken gunman and the Indian the most. I would recommend this film to anyone who can see past it's minor flaws.
