Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Cinema Insane "House on Haunted Hill" Part Two from Ormsby on Vimeo.
Showing posts with label Willian Castle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Willian Castle. Show all posts
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Cinema Insane "House on Haunted Hill" Part Two
In this episode of Cinema Insane, Clone #13 is still still small, and Ormsby gets a special phone call from...
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Monday, October 4, 2010
Cinema Insane "House On Haunted Hill" Part One
A new month brings a new movie. Our Fearsome Feature for October 2010 is "House On Haunted Hill" (1959) starring Vincent Price and directed by William Castle.
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Shanks (1974)- Part Three
Shanks - 1974
Starring Marcel Marceau, Cindy Eilbacher
Written by Ranald Graham
Directed by William Castle
Released by Paramount Pictures
"Come .... let us shut up the box and the puppets = for our play is played out."-Thackeray quote as it appears at the end of 'Shanks'
I've given you a history of my futile attempts to uncover information about 'Shanks' in Part One, and in Part Two I broke the movie's plot down for you. Now I have to dissect this little oddity and pull it apart for you.
And yes, beware of SPOILERS.
As a whole I thought it was an interesting little movie. Not quite a horror/comedy as the poster would lead you to believe, the film is hard to define and categorize. Which explains it's bad box office and near extinction in the minds of movie fans today.
Castle, although known best for his 1950's horror films, was a well rounded director who made westerns, crime dramas and comedies. So it didn't surprise me that he took on this strange little story. He gave his film a surreal fairy tale like feel (the first title card even says "William Castle Presents A Grim Fairy Tale"), with strange dissolves and sepia tone frame freezes that removes it from the real world. This was Castle's last directorial effort, and he gives himself a nice cameo as a grocer.
I thought Marcel Marceau's silent performance through out the film would be detriment, but it's not. There are whole sections of the film where not one word is uttered, but Marceau's performance transcends dialogue. I loved the parts where he's learning to use the corpse of Old Walker (also played by Marceau) as a puppet, you get the sense that Old Walker's body really is a limp corpse being manipulated by outside forces. The film plays to Marceau's strengths, and it helps that Marceau choreographed the pantomime sequences.
The film makers had a great premise, mute man is able to use the dead like puppets, but they didn't know where to go with it in the end. The biker gang comes out of left field in the third act and feels tact on. Yes, Old Walker rising from the grave to exact revenge on the gang for what they did to Celia was cool, but the rest of the ending doesn't fit with the movie. .
I need to digress for a moment and bring up the relationship between Shanks and Celia. To me it was a little off putting to have a man in his (I'm assuming to be) late forties hanging out with a girl who couldn't be more that sixteen. I'm assuming they were trying to show Shanks' innocent nature, but today it comes off as a little perverted today. Especially when they go to an isolated mansion to play dress up and have a private little birthday party.
Ending the movie back at the puppet show with Celia alive and helping to put away the puppets enforces the surreal quality of the the story, as does Thackeray's quote before the credits. The problem is all fairy tales need to have a moral which I think got lost here. The closest I came up with is "Don't use dead people as puppets", but if that's a lesson you have to teach your child I'd give up on reading them fairy tales and invest in a good psychiatric help.
But did I like it? Yes, I have to say I did. I'm glad after all these years I finally got a chance to see it. In preparing for these blog posts I re watched it two more times and I find it grows on me more and more. I know it won't be everyone's taste, but give it a chance if you can see it. Now that it aired on TCM I don't know when it will be ever showed again. No DVD release is on the horizon, which is a shame. It's the sort of film for a niche audience of movie lovers. If it was more readily available on TV or DVD I'm sure it would garner a small cult following.
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Starring Marcel Marceau, Cindy Eilbacher
Written by Ranald Graham
Directed by William Castle
Released by Paramount Pictures
"Come .... let us shut up the box and the puppets = for our play is played out."-Thackeray quote as it appears at the end of 'Shanks'
I've given you a history of my futile attempts to uncover information about 'Shanks' in Part One, and in Part Two I broke the movie's plot down for you. Now I have to dissect this little oddity and pull it apart for you.
And yes, beware of SPOILERS.
As a whole I thought it was an interesting little movie. Not quite a horror/comedy as the poster would lead you to believe, the film is hard to define and categorize. Which explains it's bad box office and near extinction in the minds of movie fans today.
Castle, although known best for his 1950's horror films, was a well rounded director who made westerns, crime dramas and comedies. So it didn't surprise me that he took on this strange little story. He gave his film a surreal fairy tale like feel (the first title card even says "William Castle Presents A Grim Fairy Tale"), with strange dissolves and sepia tone frame freezes that removes it from the real world. This was Castle's last directorial effort, and he gives himself a nice cameo as a grocer.
I thought Marcel Marceau's silent performance through out the film would be detriment, but it's not. There are whole sections of the film where not one word is uttered, but Marceau's performance transcends dialogue. I loved the parts where he's learning to use the corpse of Old Walker (also played by Marceau) as a puppet, you get the sense that Old Walker's body really is a limp corpse being manipulated by outside forces. The film plays to Marceau's strengths, and it helps that Marceau choreographed the pantomime sequences.
The film makers had a great premise, mute man is able to use the dead like puppets, but they didn't know where to go with it in the end. The biker gang comes out of left field in the third act and feels tact on. Yes, Old Walker rising from the grave to exact revenge on the gang for what they did to Celia was cool, but the rest of the ending doesn't fit with the movie. .
I need to digress for a moment and bring up the relationship between Shanks and Celia. To me it was a little off putting to have a man in his (I'm assuming to be) late forties hanging out with a girl who couldn't be more that sixteen. I'm assuming they were trying to show Shanks' innocent nature, but today it comes off as a little perverted today. Especially when they go to an isolated mansion to play dress up and have a private little birthday party.
Ending the movie back at the puppet show with Celia alive and helping to put away the puppets enforces the surreal quality of the the story, as does Thackeray's quote before the credits. The problem is all fairy tales need to have a moral which I think got lost here. The closest I came up with is "Don't use dead people as puppets", but if that's a lesson you have to teach your child I'd give up on reading them fairy tales and invest in a good psychiatric help.
But did I like it? Yes, I have to say I did. I'm glad after all these years I finally got a chance to see it. In preparing for these blog posts I re watched it two more times and I find it grows on me more and more. I know it won't be everyone's taste, but give it a chance if you can see it. Now that it aired on TCM I don't know when it will be ever showed again. No DVD release is on the horizon, which is a shame. It's the sort of film for a niche audience of movie lovers. If it was more readily available on TV or DVD I'm sure it would garner a small cult following.
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Shanks (1974)- Part Two (Contains Movie Spoilers)
Shanks - 1974
Starring Marcel Marceau, Cindy Eilbacher
Written by Ranald Graham
Directed by William Castle
Released by Paramount Pictures
In part one we explored the little information I was able to gather before sitting down to finally watch the 'Shanks'. So with popcorn and diet Mountain Dew I prepared to see what had eluded me all these years. For those of you who have not seen the film, here is a synopsis of the plot.
****WARNING-SPOILERS AHEAD****
3
2
1
We start outside a small town grocery store where Shanks (played by Marcel Marceau), a mute puppeteer, is giving a show for the town children with his puppets. He lives with his mean sister in law and her drunken second husband, Mr. Baron (it's alluded to that Shanks' brother may have met a foul end at the hands of the sister in law and new husband). His best friend is a teen (not sure of her age) girl named Celia who loves his puppet plays and asks him to do a show at her birthday party. Old Walker, a rich old scientist (also played by Marcel) enlists Shanks to work for him at his big mansion. The old man has created a way to animate the dead and control them like puppets. Starting with a frog, then a rooster, they get the process to the point it can be done wirelessly with pins inserted into specific points on the body.
One day Shanks goes to the mansion one day and finds Old Walker dead in his lab, apparently having past away in the night. Shanks does what anyone would do, and inserts the pins into the old man's corpse and starts to make it walk around. Mr. Baron, wanting money, comes to the mansion and attacks Shanks. Shanks uses the dead rooster to defend himself, killing Barton. With another fresh body, Shanks reanimates him and takes him for a little walk. Using Baron, he lures the mean sister in law out to the road to be struck and killed by a car. Guess what he does with her body.
He meets up with Celia and puts on a puppet show with the dead Barton and sister in law. Celia thinks it's a little play, until she looks into their eyes and realizes their deceased nature. Scared and crying, she asks Shanks what happened and he mines what happened to them. He shows her how he made them animated, and takes her back to the mansion for a private birthday party. With Barton and sister in law as butler and maid, they are served a dinner and cake (hang on, it's going to get strange now...okay, stranger).
A motorcycle gang ride to the mansion (why I don't know) and invade the private party. Finding the puppet dead people, they take the controls from Shanks and knock him out. Celia is attacked. When Shanks awakens he finds Celia's molested dead body outside as the gang play games with the dead puppet bodies.
Shanks takes control of Old Walker's body and makes him rise from the grave to attack and kill the gang members before having a final confrontation with the gang's lead mano-a-mano at the top of the mansion. The gang leader falls to his death. Shanks then puts the pins in Celia's body and reanimates her, dancing a waltz with her when we freeze on that image and fade to...
...Shanks giving a puppet show for the town kids outside the grocery store. An alive Celia (was the whole movie a macabre puppet show for the little kiddies? ) helping to put puppets away.
I'm going to let you digest that, and in Part Three I'm going to give you my feelings on the film.
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Starring Marcel Marceau, Cindy Eilbacher
Written by Ranald Graham
Directed by William Castle
Released by Paramount Pictures
In part one we explored the little information I was able to gather before sitting down to finally watch the 'Shanks'. So with popcorn and diet Mountain Dew I prepared to see what had eluded me all these years. For those of you who have not seen the film, here is a synopsis of the plot.
****WARNING-SPOILERS AHEAD****
3
2
1
We start outside a small town grocery store where Shanks (played by Marcel Marceau), a mute puppeteer, is giving a show for the town children with his puppets. He lives with his mean sister in law and her drunken second husband, Mr. Baron (it's alluded to that Shanks' brother may have met a foul end at the hands of the sister in law and new husband). His best friend is a teen (not sure of her age) girl named Celia who loves his puppet plays and asks him to do a show at her birthday party. Old Walker, a rich old scientist (also played by Marcel) enlists Shanks to work for him at his big mansion. The old man has created a way to animate the dead and control them like puppets. Starting with a frog, then a rooster, they get the process to the point it can be done wirelessly with pins inserted into specific points on the body.
One day Shanks goes to the mansion one day and finds Old Walker dead in his lab, apparently having past away in the night. Shanks does what anyone would do, and inserts the pins into the old man's corpse and starts to make it walk around. Mr. Baron, wanting money, comes to the mansion and attacks Shanks. Shanks uses the dead rooster to defend himself, killing Barton. With another fresh body, Shanks reanimates him and takes him for a little walk. Using Baron, he lures the mean sister in law out to the road to be struck and killed by a car. Guess what he does with her body.
He meets up with Celia and puts on a puppet show with the dead Barton and sister in law. Celia thinks it's a little play, until she looks into their eyes and realizes their deceased nature. Scared and crying, she asks Shanks what happened and he mines what happened to them. He shows her how he made them animated, and takes her back to the mansion for a private birthday party. With Barton and sister in law as butler and maid, they are served a dinner and cake (hang on, it's going to get strange now...okay, stranger).
A motorcycle gang ride to the mansion (why I don't know) and invade the private party. Finding the puppet dead people, they take the controls from Shanks and knock him out. Celia is attacked. When Shanks awakens he finds Celia's molested dead body outside as the gang play games with the dead puppet bodies.
Shanks takes control of Old Walker's body and makes him rise from the grave to attack and kill the gang members before having a final confrontation with the gang's lead mano-a-mano at the top of the mansion. The gang leader falls to his death. Shanks then puts the pins in Celia's body and reanimates her, dancing a waltz with her when we freeze on that image and fade to...
...Shanks giving a puppet show for the town kids outside the grocery store. An alive Celia (was the whole movie a macabre puppet show for the little kiddies? ) helping to put puppets away.
I'm going to let you digest that, and in Part Three I'm going to give you my feelings on the film.
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Shanks (1974) -Part One
Shanks - 1974
Starring Marcel Marceau, Cindy Eilbacher
Written by Ranald Graham
Directed by William Castle
Released by Paramount Pictures
William Castle ('The House on Haunted Hill', '13 Ghosts') is best known for his black and white horror efforts in the 1950's-early 1960's. His later works like 'Project X' and 'Let's Kill Uncle' are not as well known, and his last directorial effort is really obscure, 'Shanks'.
Growing up I never heard of this film, either in the horror books or monster magazines I devoured as a youngster. In the late eighties while researching an fanzine article for a friend about William Castle I stumbled upon the name of the film but no information. We couldn't find it on video and no one we knew had a print. Finally I found a piece of information about it in a book on Marcel Marceau, but it only said he made a film by that name and nothing else. Time went by and I forgot all about this little mystery of a film.
This past March 12th, TCM showed a night of mutant monster movies (which I wouldn' have known about if not for a posting in the Universal Monster Army forums) and capped the evening off with two William Castle films, 'Mr. Sardonicus' and the elusive 'Shanks'. I actually had to double check the listing to make sure it was the same film since I didn't' believe it could be the same film. Before that night I did a little research on the movie.
It has never been released on video or DVD, has no Wikipedia entry, and as far as I could find was never shown on TV (I may be wrong on that point, please correct me if I am). I found several reviews from the time (like Roger Ebert's from January of 1975), but decided to forgo reading them so I could watch the movie with an open mind. There were no Youtube trailers either.
The IMDB had move information than anyone, which isn't much. The most unusual fact about the movie I discovered was that Alex North's score for the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score in 1975, which it didn't win. This was screenwriter Ranald Graham's first credit, and he was active in writing and producing in England until about 1990.
Armed with that little information I sat down to watch the film, which we will talk about in Part Two...
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
Starring Marcel Marceau, Cindy Eilbacher
Written by Ranald Graham
Directed by William Castle
Released by Paramount Pictures
William Castle ('The House on Haunted Hill', '13 Ghosts') is best known for his black and white horror efforts in the 1950's-early 1960's. His later works like 'Project X' and 'Let's Kill Uncle' are not as well known, and his last directorial effort is really obscure, 'Shanks'.
Growing up I never heard of this film, either in the horror books or monster magazines I devoured as a youngster. In the late eighties while researching an fanzine article for a friend about William Castle I stumbled upon the name of the film but no information. We couldn't find it on video and no one we knew had a print. Finally I found a piece of information about it in a book on Marcel Marceau, but it only said he made a film by that name and nothing else. Time went by and I forgot all about this little mystery of a film.
This past March 12th, TCM showed a night of mutant monster movies (which I wouldn' have known about if not for a posting in the Universal Monster Army forums) and capped the evening off with two William Castle films, 'Mr. Sardonicus' and the elusive 'Shanks'. I actually had to double check the listing to make sure it was the same film since I didn't' believe it could be the same film. Before that night I did a little research on the movie.
It has never been released on video or DVD, has no Wikipedia entry, and as far as I could find was never shown on TV (I may be wrong on that point, please correct me if I am). I found several reviews from the time (like Roger Ebert's from January of 1975), but decided to forgo reading them so I could watch the movie with an open mind. There were no Youtube trailers either.
The IMDB had move information than anyone, which isn't much. The most unusual fact about the movie I discovered was that Alex North's score for the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score in 1975, which it didn't win. This was screenwriter Ranald Graham's first credit, and he was active in writing and producing in England until about 1990.
Armed with that little information I sat down to watch the film, which we will talk about in Part Two...
Until Next Time,
Stay Insane!
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