Prisoners of the Casbah (1953)

There are countless Technicolor gems amongst the forgotten Hollywood studio pictures of the '50s. Prisoners of the Casbah is one of them, produced by Sam Katzman during his time with Columbia. Prisoners is one of those gorgeous Arabic epics, full of vibrant colours, sword fights, and pretty harem girls. There's always a scheming vizier (Cesar Romero), of course. One wonders why Sultans and Emirs bothered appointing viziers, since they always turn out to be evil. There's a twist with Prisoners: the lovely Princess Nadja (Gloria Grahame) is a spoiled brat and she's totally infatuated with the vizier Firouz rather than our brazen hero, Ahmed, the Captain of the Guards (Tuhran Bey, a favourite of mine). While the Emir would like Ahmed to marry his daughter and take the throne, the Captain despises the loathsome woman as much as she despises the playboy Captain. These twists on the format are refreshing and open the representation of genders and the various other format stereotypes to scrutiny.

The visuals, whether by the intuition of the director or a conscious creative decision I can't say, affirm Nadja's potency and her initial presumption that she is master of her own destiny. While the Emir and Ahmed try to discuss to whom she will be wed, they remain still in the shot like part of the furniture. Nadja, on the other hand, darts around the frame, slinking around her father, then over to give a barbed aside to the Captain, then back to her father. Her control over the frame is such that once she manages to bring Ahmed into her father's disfavour by rejecting her, the shot closes in on Nadja and her father, leaving Ahmed offscreen, literally 'out of the picture.'

Prisoners could almost be said to be more about the breaking of a headstrong woman's will than about overthrowing a usurping vizier. While there is a climactic sword fight, the movie's real climax is when Ahmed, infuriated by Nadja's continued sympathy for Firouz, despite everything he's done, throws her over his knee and delivers unto her pretty rump a sound spanking. At this moment she falls in love with Ahmed and they begin to kiss. It is a truly startling moment. All along Nadja has had a very distinct view of masculinity: ambitious, bearded, serious, dominant, and, most importantly, potentialy violent. It's made clear early in the movie that Firouz is more just than merciful, a serious man who believes in totalitarian order. Nadja seems oddly drawn to men who will punish her and dominate her.

Whether her vibrant presence within the frame ceases post-spanking, whether Ahmed builds his kinetic force within the frame before he spanks her, and how other characters might relate to these visual motifs, is something I, alas, became too caught up in the enjoyable plotting to discover and I didn't manage to record the movie. It's a subject for future study. Nadja isn't the only 'strong woman' character in the film; indeed, the Queen of Thieves tends to dominate her husband with glances. Her character would also need to be observed. Perhaps the visual information I noted above is a mere fluke or perhaps the intuition of the director for mise-en-scene persisted throughout.

Prisoners is indeed heavily plotted for such a short film (the runtime is 78 minutes). Nadja is to be married to Ahmed, then Ahmed falls into disfavour for refusing and is dismissed. Just then Firouz sends some of his men to hold the princess hostage so he can rescue her and appear the hero, but the plan goes wrong leaving Firouz thinking her killed both the Emir and Nadja. But Nadja is of course alive and with Ahmed. Nadja doesn't want to be with Ahmed and resists him, while he tries to protect her and seeks shelter within the Casbah--a citadel in Algiers within which was a society of criminals that couldn't get out but would also let no-one in. That covers the first thirty minutes. It's rare to see so much narrative packed within a short feature and that movie still maintain an elegant visual style. Generally such a balance is reserved for Val Lewton's productions.

It's curious how in Arabian-themed pictures, thieves are often romanticized. In crime pictures, bank robbers and mobsters tend to be romanticized; in Westerns it's outlaws. Each genre tends to have its criminals to offer as underdogs with an interior code of honour more reliable than the conventional and externally-imposed code within the bounds of the law. In this film, it is only the den of thieves that offers protection from the dangerous government of Firouz. Perhaps it is in the spirit of Jean Genet: crime is liberating, makes one's spirit free. Laws of any kind enslave one to an authority. The thieves are here represented without a hint of cynicism. They're the sort of people you'd like to have a drink with. It's a sign of the sort of innocence in storytelling that seems lost these days, but is wholly present in Prisoners.

I'm a fan of such small but glamourous Technicolor epics as Prisoners of the Casbah. It's a shame so many of them remain undistributed. Were it not for heroic networks like Turner Classic Movies and, in this case, Drive-in-Classics, these movies wouldn't be seen at all. The Adventures of Hajji Baba is another obscure, Arabian epic that deserves viewing. It was made a year later and is similar in its charms.

A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990)

How much should I write about a film with almost no dialogue? I pondered writing the review exclusively in screen captures and emoticons, but the spell of Dinosaur Hell has worn off and I find myself quite literate again.

A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell begins with a very goofy and poorly read introduction that you'll never have to think about during the movie. It explains that dinosaurs mutated from housepets and humans became either mutants or barbarians. The film would have been better off not explaining it; the visuals speak loud and clear and it really requires no explanation. There are dinosaurs and mutants in a hellish, post-apocalyptic landscape populated by sexy barbarians: good enough.

The plot, as it were, arises when an evil barbarian named Glon takes a shine to the female half of a sexy barbarian couple. She's hardly 'nymphoid,' except for being young and beautiful. She's actually very faithful to her man Marn--and not a wonder, as he may be even better-looking than she is. Glon, like anyone who read the title, is convinced she's a nymphoid and is keen on getting it on with her. So he beats up Marn and runs off with girl. Marn sets out to save her. In the meantime, she manages to escape and tries to find Marn with the help of a Masked Stranger. Along the way she encounters cool-looking dinosaurs, lizard people, dragons, and, of course, Glon, who keeps showing up and attempting to rape her. He's a crap rapist; he has to take some lessons from David Hess.

The lack of dialogue doesn't hurt this film at all; if you try to imagine what sort of dialogue would be found in a film called A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, I think you'll agree. It also adds to the feel of primitivism and allowed me to focus on the pure visual storytelling. I had hoped the visuals would be fascinating and fun or that there would be some moments of quiet wonder, given that the film is set in dinosaur hell and all. As it happens, most of the shots are of fights or of walking across rocky or grassy terrains. The only moment that's really fantastic is when the girl is shown a picture book by the Masked Stranger. It's a children's book, teaching the alphabet. It's a sweet moment, in which the large, innocent eyes of our nymphoid pays off. There's also a funny punchline that I'd rather not ruin for you.

So, on the one hand, A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell is much better than a film called A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell has any right to be; on the other hand, it's also much worse than a film called A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell should be. With that title, it should be wilder, cheesier, crazier. It's a very mellow film that takes its time and passes through the dinosaur hell vistas matter-of-factly. A few striking compositions, the costumes, sets, the Harryhausen-esque creature designs, and general inventiveness recommends it for those who think they can handle barbarian storytelling: this is just what a barbarian story should be.

Gargoyles (1972)

This might not be an unbiased review, because Gargoyles stars none other than Cornel Wilde, of whom I am a big admirer. A made for TV movie, I was expecting Gargoyles to be a little hokey; and, yes, it is a little hokey. The film begins with a slideshow of gargoyles and demons accompanied by a voice-over explaining that gargoyles are a species that fights with humans for dominance of earth every so often. How they became gutter spouts is a tidbit lost to history, I guess.

Then we skip to the plot. Cornel Wilde plays a pretty interesting character, as the first 5-10 minutes makes clear to us. He's an academic whose research is into mythology, legends, occult, demonology--but all strictly as a non-believer. It's just a dry, academic subject to him. The plot sort of develops out of this. He's going to write a new best-seller on these subjects (these were the days of Eric von Daniken, after all) and wants to check out a story the story of an old curiosity shoppe owner out in the desert. So he takes his lovely daughter (Jennifer Salt, of Brian DePalma's Sisters) and heads out, where the creepy old man shows him the bones of a supposed devil.

This is where things get weird. You expect a lot of build-up before the gargoyles start making appearances. Not so. They show up in the desert and start trashing that old man's curiosity shoppe. This kind of caught me by surprise. This isn't a normal horror film I'm dealing with here, I'm thinking. And I thought right. In fact, after a few more not-really-scary encounters with the gargoyles, we get into a plot about gargoyles struggling to dominate humans and needing human education to do so while Wilde, the police force, and some bikers try to destroy them.

So it suddenly becomes a sort of fantasy epic with horror elements, namely, that the gargoyles have no qualms about savagely killing humans. Oh yeah, and the lead gargoyle tries to put the moves on Jennifer Salt. And she's all like, "Come on, I'm not even sure I'd date a black guy; I'm not ready for gargoyle love."

And that's the gist of it. The gargoyles are clearly guys in suits, but I actually like the costumes. The suits have a nice, skin-like texture that looks plausible enough. The masks are a bit more difficult to accept, but the film does what it can and I felt the film was fun enough to make me want to go along with it.

There are also some moments of unintentional humour, as one might expect in a made-for-tv fantasy horror epic about gargoyles. One of my favourites is when the old curiosity shoppe owner falls down and catches on fire, for no reason Cornel Wilde just declares, "He's dead," grabs the gargoyle skull and runs out of the building leaving the old man to burn. Another favourite is when the gargoyles come to reclaim the body of a fallen comrade and find Wilde and his daughter have slipped out of the window in a matter of seconds carrying a gargoyle body that, it would seem, suddenly weighs no more than a small bag of cat food. Incidentally, there are moments of intentional humour as well.

Gargoyles makes a good effort at entertaining and it succeeds. It is a bit awkwardly structured and doesn't seem 100% certain of what kind of movie it wants to be, but I found myself thoroughly charmed. Old fashioned goofy fun. Check it out.

Maciste All'Inferno (1925)

REVIEW
Cinema's first action hero, the Italian Maciste, makes his first descent into the underworld in Brignone's Maciste All'Inferno, a thoroughly entertaining and inventive silent.

Maciste is a gentle giant, strong and virtuous. Some emissaries, dressed in capes, tophats, and goatees, are sent up from Pluto, the King of Hades, to lure Maciste into Hell.

Though the trickery succeeds, Maciste is free to leave Hell within three days--unless, of course, he's kissed by a female devil. The females in Hell are all too willing, never having seen a man as big and strong as Maciste before.

When Maciste succumbs to the allures of the sexy demonesses, not only does it seem he is trapped in hell as a devil himself, but, as it so happens that Hell is in the midst of a civil war, he must also lead an army of devils to defend his new lord Pluto from the usurper. Will Maciste ever get out of hell?

If you're trying to imagine this plot carried out in a silent film, you no doubt have a slight notion of how weird this picture is. You don't know the half of it. Devils who get their heads knocked off by an angry Maciste play football with them, an enormous Satan plucks human souls from the hellish landscape to munch on, and a fire-breathing dragon offers Maciste a ride--these are just a few of the spectacles one has to look forward to in this film.

This is one of those rare cases where an impressive, expensive production (for its time) results in a truly fine, inventive film, not unlike Fritz Lang's Nibelungen a year earlier and Murnau's Faust a year later. Yet, there is no denying this is an early special-effects picture, invested primarily in exciting visuals. The scenes of the underworld are exceptional visions of hell. Stalactites hang down sharply over damned souls labouring in chains. Dozens of extras in unusually good devil-imp costumes roam, usually attacking Maciste in droves.

While Maciste All'Inferno is as much fantasy-adventure as it is horror, it has a lot to offer horror fans. If you like sexy devil girls, a hero who knows how to kick ass, fiendish monsters, hellish imagery, as well as a few laughs along the way, try get your hands on this one.

FACTS
Director - Guido Brignone
Writer - Riccardo Artufo, w/ credit to Dante Alighieri.
Starring - Bartolomeo Pagano, Elena Sangro
1925
95 min.

WHERE TO GET IT
Unfortunately, it is not available on a proper DVD in North America--I don't even know if it's available in Italy. Don't let that stop you, however. It is quite available on eMule in a quite good, quality avi.
UPDATE: Capkronos has informed me that the Nightmare Worlds 50 Movie Collection contains this film. This box set is easy to find.

TIDBITS
Maciste All'Inferno is the film that made Fellini decide to be a director.
Was an influence on Mario Bava, such that he paid tribute with Hercules in the Haunted World.
Riccardo Freda remade it in 1962, which I reviewed earlier in this series.

Maciste All'Inferno (1962)

REVIEW:
By 1962, the peplum genre, with its sandal-wearing musclemen, had already run out of steam in Italy. Italians are not troubled by such matters. They mix the stale with another genre as quickly as you can say 'casserole.' Whence came Maciste All'Inferno, a horror peplum.
This film is more accurately titled in English as The Witch's Curse. In fact, you won't meet Maciste until thirty minutes into the film. You won't learn his name for another fifteen minutes. It is only when he shows up, however, that things become interesting.
The film begins in 18th century Scotland with the burning of a witch, who insinuates that the clergyman doing the burning is a spurned lover. She curses the village, the clergyman, and goes up in smoke.
A century later, a descendant with the exact same name as the witch shows up in the same village and moves into the witch's old castle with her new husband. Well, who can blame the superstitious villagers for becoming a little hysterical? In fact, they launch a torch-and-pitchfork attack on the castle, imprisoning the couple in preparation for a centenary barbecue of witches. Oh dear.
Enter Maciste, who, despite wearing nothing but a loincloth in 19th century Scotland, is greeted with little to no surprise. Maciste saves the couple with his physical might alone and agrees to journey into hell itself--which is conveniently located beneath a local tree--to find the witch and end the curse.
The prime joys of this film occur from this point on. The imagery of hell, however crude, is quite unforgettable and at times startlingly beautiful.
Maciste himself is also startlingly beautiful. Kirk Morris' impressive physique is shamelessly flaunted here as his Maciste solves all difficulties, be it a stampede of bulls, Goliath, or a tree that needs uprooting, by gripping, straining, straining, and straining. The homoeroticism is difficult to miss.
For unintentional laughs, some fascinating visions of hell, and a certainly unique cinematic experience, The Witch's Curse is a worthy excursion into weird.


FACTS:
Director - Riccardo Freda
Starring - Kirk Morris
1962
76 minutes

WHERE TO GET IT:
It's cheaply available on DVD from Alpha Video as The Witch's Curse.

TIDBIT:
Richard Dyer placed the film 7th on the Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll of 2002 for greatest films of all time. I emailed him about this. He told me the movie is entertaining and Kirk Morris is nice to look at.