The Sunday Intertitle: Let Georges Do It

The opening minutes of this film are plagued by a strange, rapidly flickering eclipse, swallowing up the image from right to left — it feels like we’re watching a celluloid Moebius strip that keeps turning its back on us… this movie, ravaged by nitrate decomposition, was clearly lucky to survive at all…

After enjoying HUGO — about which more later — I suddenly wondered about Georges Melies’ last film. As far as I knew, I’d never seen it, and didn’t even know what it was. I wondered if it showed clues as to Melies’ artistic direction at that point in his career. I didn’t expect it to be nakedly autobiographical, because you don’t expect that of Melies, ever.

THE VOYAGE OF THE BOURRICHON FAMILY is one of two films by Melies from 1913 (the title on the actual film reads THE VOYAGE OF M. BOURRICHON), and it seems to be the only one that survives. Complicating its status as Melies last movie, it was co-directed with his brother Gaston (you never hear about him!) who died two years later. Melies’ fall starts to sound even more heartbreaking than HUGO makes out.

The film is at once archetypal G.M., with its indecipherable hordes of cavorting characters, theatrical sets, slapstick and trick effects, and also curiously muted. Although an opening title in English promises a haunted inn, the whole thing seems to be trickery of a Scooby Doo variety, possibly a first for the director — if he really felt his brand of fantasy was going out of style, this may have been a stab at a solution, magic with a boring rational explanation.

But the interesting thing about the film is its plot, which follows M. Boucherron and his clan as they attempt to flee their creditors. The bilked pursuers board the train with the fugitives and subject Mr. B to a variety of indignities and assaults, blasting him with trombones, dropping him down a well, exploding a piano, and causing his chair somehow to rise upon giraffe-like legs until he teeters atop it near the rafters. At the film’s conclusion, I *think* they put bags over their heads and transform into comedy darkies, bursting into his drawing room and berating the poor man and his family with batons, like some kind of nightmarish minstrel droogs. It’s all slightly confusing.

The reliance on a depressing insolvency as plot motor is interesting, since it’s exactly what poor Georges faced — his low productivity in 1913 suggests he was already in trouble, beaten by piracy, competition from the major studios, and changing audience tastes. In 1913, FANTOMAS hit the screens (check the poster visible in HUGO at the moment of Melies’  career’s end), bringing melodrama and surrealism onto real locations. The Italians had QUO VADIS?, one of the first feature-length films, the Germans had a more frightening and psychological fantasy in THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE, Sweden had the compelling drama of INGEBORG HOLM, and in a year’s time, Charlie Chaplin would wander onscreen. There was nothing wrong with what Melies was doing — it’s what he had always done. But it must have looked old-fashioned compared to the other cinematic goodies available.

To put things in even more perspective, even Edwin S. Porter, whose work had considerably more interest in dramatic values than Melies, would pack it in in 1915, disturbed by the alarming realism and intensity of modern cinema. And so Melies, father of film fantasy, retreated to his railway station, a fate prefigured here —

Buy the Melies box set

The Place of the Skull

Look — it’s Jesus!

Since Easter is approaching, we decided to watch a man get nailed to some timber.

To say that Julien Duvivier’s GOLGOTHA — a big budget, star-studded life-and-death-and-life of Christ movie — falls into the trap of the biblical movie, is to not say nearly enough. Duvivier’s film flings itself headlong into that trap, with the crazed abandon of Joe Cocker, if Joe Cocker were a film about Christ. It’s not the best metaphor in the world, but you get what I mean.

To clarify: a common complaint about Hollywood epics is that they lack real people, or at any rate people we can relate to. Part of the trouble is dialogue. “I don’t know how a pharaoh talks,” as Howard Hawks put it, is a brilliant encapsulation of the problem of presenting characters from an age and culture very different from out own, who would have spoken a language different from the one we’re presenting them in.

(Sidebar: Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic flogathon THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST cuts this Gordian knot with the classic simplicity of the true moron: it doesn’t matter that the languages used in Gibson’s s&m porno Christ are not the right ones for the period. All that matters is that the vast majority of modern viewers don’t understand a word of what’s being said, thus accurately recreating the effect of being present at the real crucifixion.)

The result of all these difficulties with speech and characterisation is often a certain wooden quality, often reinforced by the scale of these productions. Recreating life in ancient times can be very expensive, and filmmakers sometimes see this expense as a goal rather than a result. Plodding, monumental epics naturally tend to diminish the human element, encouraging the actors to declaim and strike poses, so the whole problem is exacerbated.

And then again, it’s an artistic challenge to imagine what people were actually like in earlier times. We can err by making them too like us, but also by making them too different. When Peter Ustinov blew on his soup in QUO VADIS?, he was told the gesture was too modern. “In what age,” he inquired, “did the wretched Romans stop eating their minestrone piping hot?”

Duvivier’s movie, a super-production of the kind more associated with Hollywood than France, was filmed amid giant sets, with a ceaselessly gliding camera. Since the days of CABIRIA and INTOLERANCE, filmmakers have recognised that camera movement allows for the celebration of vast scale, although they have likewise struggled with the fact that such movements, when motivated by a desire to explore space rather than follow characters around, can tend to minimise the people still further. Duvivier, like George Lucas, built his fantasy city in Tunisia, although his gigantic Jerusalem — a combination of massive sets, existing structures and special effects — easily beats the crap out of Mos Eisley Spaceport.

“There never was a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

The restless tracking shots with which Duvivier examines this vast arena call to mind Michael Curtiz, with whom Duvivier is often compared. Such an analogy often does a disfavour to both men, by implying that they’re impersonal artisans, capable of turning their hands to any genre, and devoid of personal trademarks. Curtiz certainly has a signature style, which involves a high-gloss visual surface, a roving camera, and an avoidance of thematic obsessions, apart from a tendency to linger on moments of sadism. Duviviershares some of the visual concerns, but was also usually involved in the scripting of his films, which do cover a wide range of territories, but feature recurring themes and character types too. In this film, however, he could almost be a parody of Curtiz, ignoring the people and story and concentrating most of his attention on design and cruelty.

But the devotion to the look isn’t 1005 consistent. Although most of the characters are chipboard stereotypes — grumbling pharisees, a shifty Peter, an angsty Judas — a few touches give humanity (of a degraded kind) to the Roman soldiery, who are heard grumbling about the weather and laughing as they poke a blindfolded Christ with a stick (“Which one of us was that, eh?”), in a variation on the arse-kicking game played by Hugh Herbert in FOG OVER FRISCO. And while Christ himself is weirdly de-emphasised as a central character, rendered more as icon than personality, Pontius Pilate and Herod each get moments when the film slows its pace right down, and Duvivier pays rapt attention to the faces of his actors. Of course, since the actors are Jean Gabin and Harry Baur, this kind of star treatment is to be expected, but it’s nonetheless startling when Duviver holds on Baur’s great face for second after second, as Herod sizes up an off-screen Christ. (Christ is frequently off-screen, even in scenes where he’s present. It feels like Duvivier wants us to be startled whenever we do actually get to see his main character: a commendably mad idea.)

This is a remarkable scene all round, since it has become invested with the grimmest of all possible ironies. Herod is played by an actor later tortured and murdered by the Gestapo. Jesus is played by an actor who was a fervent collaborationist and Nazi sympathiser, Robert Le Vigan. To see Baur passing judgement on Le Vigan is quite weird, melancholy and disturbing.

Then comes the flogging, which Duvivier does not show, instead slowly closing in on the faces of witnesses gazing through a barred window. “We want to see!” someone cries, but Duvivier does not let US see. There’s a sly, cynical wit here that Mel Gibson could learn from, if it were possible to put the words “Mel”, “Gibson” and “learn” in the same sentence without the sky falling in. There’s also the famous “blood libel,” which brought Gibson some criticism — as I understand it, the line is in the bible, so Duvivier (or even Gibson) including it is defensible on grounds of fidelity to the source, but it’s still unfortunate.

Which it does, right after they nail Jesus up. The traditional death mass (AKA “the theme from THE SHINING”) gives way to an insane xylophonic freakout as the firmament pours past at time-lapse velocity, rent asunder periodically by the most convincing SFX lightning-flashes I’ve ever seen in a ’30s movie.

I never knew Judas hanged himself on Skull Island.

As you can probably guess from my description, and from any memories you might have of George Stevens’ beautiful but lumbering arse-marathon THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, Duvivier’s film isn’t exactly moving, just solemn and sweeping, but it’s at least spectacular in creative ways, and follows its own perverse course so blindly that it achieves a kind of artistic grandeur above mere spectacle. It’s exactly the kind of film which might tend to reinforce the usual prejudices about Duvivier as an empty-headed purveyor of glossy production values, but once you’ve seen LA FIN DU JOUR or PEPE LE MOKO or POIL DE CAROTTE or PANIQUE you ought to be inoculated against that kind of poppycock. And there’s an underlying strangeness to the whole approach that seperates it from the monumentalism of Stevens’ much-maligned film.

When Lands the Saucer

Warm up the probulator!

I’m indebted to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for the title of this post. I think it comes from an old copy of The Demon, and it stuck in my mind because I thought it was amusing. (Apparently I’m wrong about the provenance — see comments section.) Any title that seeks grandeur by shuffling the words around (THE RIVER WILD) makes me think of that Dorothy Parker line about “The Play Terrible.”

Let’s be clear — DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS is a B-picture. The opening credit, “Spartan Productions” is hilariously apt.

But D.G.F.M. doesn’t actually fit the “so-bad-it’s-good” paradigm, which is fortunate, because that’s become rather a boring formulation. In fact, bits of the film are genuinely excellent: there’s a really beautiful flying saucer, complete with spinning bit; a smashing robot; a sexy space girl in slinky dominatrix uniform; two more human women of interest to genre fans; and John Laurie, primarily known in Britain for his role in the sitcom Dad’s Army, but familiar to American cineastes for his appearnaces in THE EDGE OF THE WORLD and THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP.

Indeed, considering it’s a sci-fi thriller, there’s more than a whiff of situation comedy about DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS. More on this aspect later.

The bad bits of the film — the lethargic, stay-at-home plot, the indecisive villainess who should be driving the story but keeps dithering, leading man Hugh McDermott’s hideous face — are pretty bad, and sometimes annoying. The combination of good and bad elements is sort of enjoyable and exciting. You never know whether you’re going to be tickled or stabbed, entertainmentwise. It’s like a night out in Glasgow.

The “action” unfolds at a guest house in the Scottish highlands, host to more drama than is typically the case with such establishments, in my experience. A glamorous London fashion model fleeing a doomed relationship is already in residence — this is Hazel Court in her second fantasy film (she’d already done THE GHOST SHIP for Vernon Sewell two years earlier). Then a convicted wife-murderer, escaped from prison, arrives and is sheltered by barmaid Adrienne Corri (another horror/sci-fi regular, best known for being denuded by droogs in CLOCKWORK ORANGE, an Edinburgh-born Scots-Italian beauty who also worked for Preminger, Lean, Renoir…). Challenged to explain why this traveller has no money, she improvises a tale about him bending over to try and catch a salmon, then straightening up to find his wallet gone. The old “fish thief” story — very convincing.

Already we have the tea-obsessed housekeeper and her drunkard husband (John Laurie, natch) and a young nephew from London. Soon, a car-sharing Irish astrophycisist and American journalist turn up. It’s quite a houseful even before the alien invasion begins.

Prof. Hennessey tries to warm his hands on a spaceship.

The American is actually another Edinburgh-born actor, Hugh McDermott, but his accent seems to have taken a transatlantic turn. I have the same trouble myself, actually. Too many Marvel comics as a kid.

Then the saucer lands. And this is the off-season!

Our space vixen informs the residents that she’s come to pilfer our men, replacing the ones who were nuked in the Big Martian Sex War. She does this while ceaselessly, pointlessly walking up and down, like Hamlet’s father’s ghost, which is mildly freaky and kind of effective. Then she tells them they’re surrounded by an invisible barrier and can’t escape — the scientist tries and comes back with a gashed forehead, having walked into it. “I believe what my brain tells me to believe,” he cries, on more than one occasion. He should stop listening, his brain is a fool.

The humes act up, so Mars-Gal shows them her robot, and it’s a beauty. It wantonly discomouferates things, like Gort from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, three years earlier. One of those coincidences, I expect. Fiona and I were delighted by the robots design, pure Japanese tin toy. And his impressive HEFT. “That terrible robot!” cries Corri. “He’s not, he’s smashing!” shouted Fiona back at her.

The Martian, Nyah, is Patricia Laffan, who played Poppaea in QUO VADIS?, so this may have seemed a bit of a come-down, but she throws herself into it with more sneering superiority than anybody’s ever seen. This is the role she’ll be remembered for. Did she have an inkling of this as she slunk around the tiny set in her erotic space-wear? She’s first seen evaporating a balding wee man, a stereotypical “little worm”, in fact, the image of the masochistic bank manager of suburban sexual legend. She’s also reminiscent of another space-domme, the legendary Supreme Commander Servalan from the B.B.C.’s fondly-remembered but slightly crap Blake’s Seven. Interestingly, Servalan was played by another ex-Hammer glamour queen, the unconventionally beautiful Jacqueline Pearce (PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, THE REPTILE). Pearce is still unconventionally beautiful and still acts, while also working in a monkey sanctuary.

Anyway, returning to the monkey sanctuary that is DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS: I felt that Nyah’s power is considerably diminished by her inability to make up her mind. It may be a Martian’s prerogative, but it doesn’t help the dramatic arc…

Prof. Hennessey tries to warm his hands on a spaceship. Again.

Basically, the dramatic part of the story all unfolds while the saucer is being repaired by “Charlie” the robot. (Not a very Martian name, I’d have thought, although maybe it’s actually spelled “Chaghrrl-A” or something.) During the course of this little pit-stop, Nyah first freezes Corri, then un-freezes her, hypnotises the murderer and makes him go all murderous (doesn’t seem like much of an achievement, but still), abducts the small boy, then releases him, takes the scientist aboard her ship for a little tour, allowing him to gather intelligence to use against them, then announces that she will take one of the men as a guide to help her find her way around London. This conjures amusing images of her quietly landing in Camden Town and wandering the streets in her space garb, unnoticed by the general populace.

The film then allows the characters time to furiously debate who should make the supreme sacrifice by going with Nyah and attempting to sabotage her saucer in mid-flight. But this is a pointless scene, since Nyah has just told them SHE will be making the choice. It’s downright weird, this.

Predictably, Bobby Murderer gets selected so he can redeem himself and the Earth is saved and the landlady gets the kettle on. Suddenly I got the feeling I’d been watching A Very Special Episode of Father Ted. The scientist looks a bit like an older Ted. There’s the dissolute drunkard. And the tea-obsessed housekeeper. Admittedly, there are more babes and spacecraft than usual…

“Now I think we all REALLY need a cup of tea!”

The film is also a fine entry in the gather-in-the-pub-as-the-world-ends school of science fiction, a substrain unique to Britain. See also SHAUN OF THE DEAD, THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING, and several of the QUATERMASS films. See them before you see this, actually. But see this anyway.

Shadowplay would like to thank Huckleberry Hound for the word “discomouferate”.