1980 - THE BLOODY LADY - aka Krvavá pani

An anti Disney princess movie if ever there was one.  The Bloody Lady is based on an actual individual Countess Elizabeth Bathory who along with her servants was possibly responsible for the deaths of 80 women.  These crimes turned into a folk legend that claimed she bathed in the blood of the women she killed in order to maintain her youth.

 This is an animated horror film with cute little furry animals in the forest and a virginal princess until it takes a turn to the dark side.  The animation is stylized and the backgrounds are minimalist for the most part.  The style of the film kind of reminds me of one of those Hanna-Barbara or Filmation cartoon productions that showed up on Saturday mornings but this one has plenty of exaggerated blood for the horror gang.

 

The director is a man named Viktor Kubal who was based in Slovakia and is practically unknown in the west.  There are some examples and completed cartoons of his work on YouTube which are worth a look particularly if you are a fan of animation.

 

The Bloody Lady is  available on YouTube in a complete and good transfer. 

The film runs 72 minutes and was written by Viktor Kubal

1980 - THE DAY TIME ENDED, amateur hour science fiction tilm

Well here goes the plot.  A family living in some part of the American southwest desert gets trapped in some interstellar time and space warp.  That's about it for the plot of this low budget science fiction film.

The film is loaded up with has been and no name actors who I can at least say perform professionally.  Next to the decent looking special effects made on a tight budget it looks like the cast was the second biggest item in the film's budget because it sure the hell wasn't the story.

 

This film apparently employed a lot of special effects technicians who were underemployed or unemployed.  There are decent optical, stop motion special effects and old style matte paintings to give credit where it's due.  But overall the film has that look of an after school teacher assigned project.  You can thank the success of Star Wars for propagating stuff like this on the viewing public

There are amazingly enough three writers credited, Wayne Schmidt, J. Larry Carroll and David Schmoeller, the running time for a film without a story is 79 minutew.

1980 - THE MIROR CRACK'D, nice and boring Agatha Christie mystery

 The producers John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin go to the well once again with another Agatha Christie adaptation.  They had considerable financial success with Murder On The Orient Express starring Albert Finny as Hercule Poirot.  Their follow up was Death on the Nile another Hercule Poirot film made money but considerably less than Murder On The Orient Express.  Probably looking for a break from Poirot mysteries the producers hired director Guy Hanilton to film The Mirror Crack'd with Agatha Christie's other popular detective character Jane Marple.

 

At times the producers seemed like they were thumbing their noses up at the mystery. The cast was a real collection of Hollywood has beens. Elizabeth Taylor played an aging film star, Rock Hudson played her husband a hack film director. Kim Novak was cast as Taylor's movie star nemesis and Tony Curtis was the producer of a film that is being shot in Jane Marple's home town, this is an amazing cast of past their prime performers. 

 

Many scenes in the film featured Taylor and Novak trading quips about aging Hollywood movie stars. The film they are making appears to be about the life of Mary Queen of Scots a woman who died at the age of 44.  Taylor at the time was 48 but looked about 60 with years of partying finally starting to catch up with her.  The cameraman must have had his hands full photographing her.  I suspect Agatha Christie would have not been real thrilled by the changes made in her novel.  Angela Lansbury played Jane Marple a character she basically rehashed for her Jessica Fletcher character in her TV series Murder She Wrote.

 

Well anyway we see Miss Marple go through all the expected motions as she solves a couple of murders relating to the movie company.  Guy Hamilton's direction is competent enough. He was always a decent craftsman if not an "auteur" film maker.  The photography is nice and pretty and if you are in the mood to watch a bunch of has been actors hamming it up this film is as good a time killer as any.

The film was written by Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler, the running time is 105 minutes.

1980 - THE CHANGELING, haunted house film fairly well done.

Mr. Patton himself George C, Scott along with his wife Trish Van Devere star in a haunted house film.  Scott gives his usual really intense performance, he's not afraid of some ghost if anything the ghost should be afraid of him.

The gold standard for haunted house films is of course Robert Wise's film The Haunting.  The Changeling isn't quite in that league but it's a well done spook film.  The director Peter Medak knows how to apply all the standard scary stuff.  Creepy music, ghostly tracking shots, loud bumps in the night and naturally a scary thunderstorm during a seance. As always in fiction it's not about the usual cliches but how you deploy them.

 

The film stays fairly suspenseful and compelling for around the first half but sort of loses it's focus during the second part as Scott solves the reason for the haunting. There's a good confrontation between Scott and veteran actor Melvyn Douglas who more than holds his own when performing with Scott.  Douglas acted practically up until the time of his death at 80 years old, a remarkable career.

 

The Changeling is set in Seattle but was filmed in Canada as was usually the way back in the 1980's.  I suppose the producers had to take advantage of the tax breaks.

The film was written by William Gray and Diana Maddox, the running time is 107 minutes.

1980 - THE FOG, John Capenter's follow up to Halloween.

Carpenter's next film after Halloween.  The intention was apparently to make a classic ghost story.  Working with a small budget but a much larger cast, Carpenter didn't quite pull it off. Carpenter used all of his old tricks from Halloween. There are jump cuts, the usual tracking camera shots and lots of creative ways to kill people.

The cast is almost a John Carpenter stock company.  Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins, Charles Cyphers and Janet Leigh (Jamie Lee Curtis's mother).  The film has lots of little in jokes as well.  One character is named Dan O'Bannon after the writer of Carpenter's first film Dark Star.  Another character is called Tommy Wallace who was the editor of The Fog and finally there is Carpenter himself in a small role at the beginning of the film.

 

I'm not sure what happened with this film. Certainly all the ingredients were there for a successful horror film but for some reason they just don't come together.  Perhaps the jumping between characters negated the film's suspense and horror moments.  Not even having Jamie Lee Curtis back helped much.  Adding gratuitous violence didn't do much for the film either.

The Fog made money since it was advertised as "from the director of Halloween," but this film is no Halloween.

The film was written by John Carpenter and Deborah Hill, the running time is 90 minutes.

1980 - SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II, car chase film without car chases

 Curiosity drove me to watch this sequel to Smokey and the Bandit, one of the most popular action comedies of the time.  The rumor was that this sequel was really bad and did not measure up in any way to the first film.  How bad could it be?  Well as it turns out the rumor was absolutely correct.  The film is a complete failure even for a simple minded sequel.  All the filmmakers had to do was remake the original movie but apparently they had loftier ambitions.  The film is an examination of the role of celebrity in America and the toll it can take on the rich and famous, in this case Burt Reynolds and his toupee.

Burt Reynolds is back as the happy go lucky driving ace "The Bandit." The Bandit has fallen on hard times, he's drinking to much and his girlfriend played by Sally Field who at this time were a couple in real life has left him.  He gets a chance to redeem himself with an offer to transport a pregnant elephant to the GOP convention.  Jerry Reed is back as The Bandit's sidekick and Dom DeLuise is the doctor taking care of the pregnant elephant.  You know you're film is in trouble when Dom DeLuise is the most nuanced character in the film.

Back also is The Bandit's nemesis Sheriff Buford T. Justice, in pursuit.   Jackie Gleason is not just playing one character but actually three in total, Gaylord Justice some sort of weird gay character and Reginald Van Justice who sings opera for no apparent reason.  Gleason was clearly allowed to ham it up throughout the film and it's safe to say he's not very funny.  Since this is basically another Burt Reynolds redneck comedy film we have The Statler Brothers, Mel Tillis and Brenda Lee showing up in it.  

 

The film was directed by Hal Needham the stuntman turned director.  Needham is a unique voice in the world of film.  He doesn't know how to direct actors, his staging of scenes is completely pedestrian and he doesn't seem to understand how dialog in films works.  Needham's expertise is in staging car stunts and toward the end of the movie there is a large scale semi-truck versus cop car show down which actually comes to late to save this boring film.  This film is a warm up for Needam's Cannonball Run films.  Needham in his own odd way is actually kind of an auteur he cetrainly has a distinct non style.

This was a career nadir for Reynolds and Sally Field or should I say another career nadir, they made five films together.  Field and Reynolds apparently didn't remember the old Hollywood message, don't act with kids or animals as they are complete scene stealers Smokey and the Bandit II has both.

The film was written by veteran comedy writer Jerry Belson but it's completely unfunny.  The cowriter is a man named Brock Yates who was one of the actual organizers of the real Cannonball coast to coast race.

As with many films in the world of cinema, Smokey and the Bandit II will sink out of sight and at best be a distant memory and a tribute to the inability of Hollywood to offer even simple minded entertainments to the movie going masses.

The running time is 101 minutes.

1980 - FLASH GORDON, campy remake of the old serial

George Lucas had wanted to remake the 1936 Flash Gordon serial.  He was unable to obtain the rights from producer Dino De Laurentiis who controlled them. Instead he went ahead with his own idea for a science fiction/fantasy film, Star Wars, or so the story goes. DeLaurentiis went and  hired British director Mike Hodges who seemed like a very odd choice for this kind of material.  De Laurentiis also brought on Lorenzo Semple Jr. to write the film.  Semple specialized in campy films and TV shows like, The Green Hornet which introduced American audiences to Bruce Lee, the Adam West Batman series and the remake of King Kong with Jeff Bridges.

Probably the most important contributor to this version of Flash Gordon was Danilo Donati, an Italian costume and production designer usually associated with Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini.  Donati's fingerprints are all over this film from the crazed sets to the costumes.  Taking a chance De Laurentiis assembled a couple of performers without a lot of performing experience.  Sam J. Jones as Flash and Melody Anderson.  Physically they look like the comic book characters and they are adequate.  Also showing up was Swedish actor Max Von Sydow as the evil Asian emperor Ming, and Topol as Dr. Hans Zarkov.

Universal studios clearly looking for a Star Wars type of hit financed the film.  However the box office returns and the reviews were only so so.  No sequels to this film.

 

For a camp fest like this, Flash Gordon plays fairly well.  The photography is colorful, the special effects have a kind of charming retro feel to them and the whole film moves along fairly well.  Just for the look of the film alone, Flash Gordon is worth watching. 

The running time is 114 minutes.

1980 - RAISE THE TITANIC, like the title says.

A big expensive film based on the Clive Cussler book.  Raise The Titanic was also a big failure with critics and the audience.  However this film is a "guilty pleasure" for me.  The logistics of actually raising a sinking ship like the Titanic are fascinating.  The extensive model and miniature work is at a very high level and at times it looks like they actually sailed the Titanic into New York harbor.

The cast is a mixture of excellent film actors like Jason Robards, Richard Jordan and Alec Guiness and lots of television actors such as J. D. Cannon, Bo Brudin and Dirk Blocker.  This is rather unsurprising since the film was directed by Jerry Jameson a filmmaker who usually worked in TV on just about every cop show that ran from the 1960's to the 2000's. Jameson was brought into the project as a replacement for the original director Stanley Kramer.

 

Also in the film is Anne Archer in the very thankless role as the romantic lead, you could have completely cut her scenes and it would not have affected the film in any way

The film has an outstanding score by John Barry and along with the special effects may be the best thing about the film.

The film was written by Adam Kennedy, the running time is 114 minutes.

1980 - STARDUST MEMORIES, Woody Allen apes Fellini

I saw this when it was first released in the theaters At the time I thought it was some kind of masterpiece.  Now I'm not so sure.  Obviously Fellini's 8 1/2 is the inspiration for this film.  It's photographed in black and white by Gordon Willis who was a master cinematographer.  It borrows the opening of Fellini's picture and the film in general is about a famous comedic film director who doesn't what to make funny films anymore much like the character in Sullivan's Travels.

The character of Sandy Bates the film director is clearly modeled after Woody Allen.  This isn't the nebbish character he played in his films but a guy who knows his way around a film production and how to deal with studio executives.  In addition, Sandy Bates is something of a lady's man who doesn't seem to have any problems getting together with beautiful women,  probably a character closer to the real Woody Allen.

 

Stardust Memories also had the reputation as the film where Woody Allen announced to the world that  he hated his fans, something he has denied.  However watching the film with it's grotesque Fellini like  gargoyle faces it's hard to argue that he certainly doesn't seem to like them very much.

 

For a meticulous filmmaker like Woody Allen who spends most of the film setting up his character's extensional and emotional angst he gets to the end of the film and clearly doesn't know how to resolve it.

Woody Allen is a talented guy but I'm not sure copying other filmmakers is the best way to make films even if it's a "loving homage."

The running time, 85 minutes.

1980 - USED CARS, Robert Zemeckis best film

This is one funny black comedy.  The film which was written by Robert Zemeckis and his writing partner Robert Gale centers around the battle between two very sleazy used car dealers.  If the film wasn't so likeable and funny I hate to think how it could have turned out.

 

Kurt Russell is the lead salesman going to war against Jack Warden. Russell is ably assisted by Gerritt Graham and Frank McRae.  Also in some crazy casting choices, Al (Grandpa) Lewis shows up as a judge,  Dub Taylor is a slimy politician and blink and you'll miss him,  everyone's genre favorite actor Dick Miller.

 

This is probably the best film Robert Zemeckis made.  His career has seemed to degenerate into a series of overblown special effects films lacking the wit and fun that he brought to this film.

Running time 113 minutes.

1980 - THE LONG RIDERS, late period Western film.

 The director Walter Hill single highhandedly tried to keep the Western film alive long after the genre died out.  This is his version of the Jesse James/Cole Younger saga.  As with just about every film Hill was involved in the story has his usual meticulous care with the story and the staging of the action elements.

The big news in this film was the casting of the James/Younger gang with actors who were all brothers in real life.  Consequently you get the Carradine brothers, the Keach brothers, the Quaid brothers and the Guest brothers as the famous (notorious) outlaw gang.  

The Keach brothers were the primary instigators of the film.  They produced and developed the story.

The Keach brothers also take a writing credit along with Bill Bryden and  Steven Phillip Smith.  The film runs 99 minutes.

1980- THE SEA WOLVES, old time World War 2 film

 This throwback to a war film was already dated when it came out in 1980 to put it mildly.

The film has the usual disclaimer that it is based on a true story.  A quick search of the internet confirms it.  The film is sort of a Guns of Navarone except with old guys.  The Sea Wolves even has one of the stars of Navarone in the person of Gregory Peck.

The plot is about a bunch of retired army officers recruited to destroy a German ship providing information to a Nazi submarine for the purpose of sinking British cargo ships during World War 2.  I really don't have to rehash the plot because anyone who has seen a war movie or two knows how this thing is going to go

 

 The amazing cast is like a who's who of old British stars.  David Niven, Trevor Howard, Patrick Macnee and Roger Moore, probably the youngest guy in the group and he wasn't exactly a spring chicken when they made this.  In addition there is a whole bunch of British character actors in minor parts whose names I don't know, but trust me I have seen in a lot of British films through the years.  

 

The film was directed by amiable hack Andrew V. McLaglen whose style will never be confused with that of Francois Truffaut.  Another old timer Reginald Rose wrote the screenplay.  

With all that said, the film is actually kind of enjoyable in a tired sort of way.  Roger Moore plays his part like he's in a James Bond movie.  Gregory Peck struggles with his accent and David Niven plays the gentlemanly British character he made a career out of.

120 minutes.

1980 - CADDYSHACK on BLU RAY

A very unfunny movie which somehow made a pile of money.  Probably the anti establishment focus and the silly scenes between Bill Murray and the gopher puppet sold the film to the 80's audiences.  Viewed today it's all pretty stupid to put it mildly.

 The film certainly wasn't lacking for comedians.  Ted Knight, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and night club comic Rodney Dangerfield mug and crack jokes throughout the film.  Some are funny most are not.  Chase certainly did not bring his "A" game to the film, and Dangerfield doesn't even try to build a character. 

The behind the camera talent featured writers from Animal House, Doug Kenny and Harold Ramis where that comedy at least had a reasonably talented director in John Landis who could pace the scenes.  Ramis can barely stage any of the action as the film moves along from one set piece to another. 

However who am I to argue since the film has a big cult following today.

98 minutes, written by Harold Ramis, Doug Kenny and Brian Doyle-Murray.

1980 - STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

If you can get through the first 30 minutes of this film with all the Millennium Falcon won't fly jokes with Han Solo and Chewbacca hamming it up, this is turns into a pretty decent sequel.

 

George Lucas gave up direction on this film turning it over to a decent director of actors named Irvin Kershner.  But for the most part this was a Lucas production with his hand prints all over it especially in the special effects sequences which are still very goof.

There may be a touch of what Andrew Sarris calls "strained seriousness"  running through this film but it certainly plays better then the mediocre future films in the series

124 minutes, written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan.

1980 - THE SHINING, on Blu Ray

The Shining looks great on my Blu Ray disc.  The cinematography by John Alcott really comes to life.  Say what you want about this film but Stanley Kubrick's meticulous direction and Jack Nicholson's larger than life performance make watching this film an enjoyable experience if you can call watching a horror film an enjoyable experience I guess.

There was a lot of criticism regarding Kubrick letting Nicholson go over the top so early in the film but Nicholson's performance is very impressive.  Shelley Duvall is also very good and the little kid isn't bad either.

Since I first saw The Shining on it's initial release I was somewhat lukewarm to it but I would have to say the film while no masterpiece like 2001: A Space Odyssey is a very good film.  On a technical level the film is a very impressive piece of craftsmanship.

Nicholson and Kubrick on the set

 144 minutes, screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson.

1980 - CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC, The Village People Musical

Of course it's bad, it's a musical with The Village People top billed it couldn't be anything else but bad.  Besides the Village People, the film also stars Valerie Perrine who looks great until she opens her mouth, Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner who unsurprisingly can't act but can get away with wearing a tank top and Steve Guttenberg star of the Police Academy series. The film also features Tammy Grimes, Barbara Rush a former 1950's ingenue and June Havoc the sister of legendary stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.

The producer Allen Carr had been associated with the success of the film Grease.  Hollywood though Carr had the Midas touch which allowed to produce a couple of musical flops like Grease 2 and this film.  Carr hired Nancy Walker, a comedian who had directed a few TV sitcom episodes but never a motion picture.  The Village People had been popular in the 1970's during the disco craze but this was 1980 and disco was dying on the vine like the Commodore 64.  It was the perfect storm of creative failure.

To address the "gay thing,"  yeah it's there and not even in some kind of subtext but right in the open particularly during the YMCA number featuring a chorus of men executing some of the same moves as the Busby Berkley bathing beauties of the 1930's.  Even Valerie Perrine in short and tight clothes couldn't disguise this stuff. 

 

The bottom line even as gay camp the film kind of stinks with it's crappy original songs, strange casting of middle aged actresses and the sight of the Village People running around in their persona's of cowboy, Indian, construction worker etc.

124 minutes, written by Allan Carr, Bronte Woodard

1980 - POPEYE, the unmusical

UNFLIPPING BELIEVABLE.  Robert Altman directs, Robert Evans produces and apparently the coke, pot and booze flowed freely during the making of this film.  The result unsurprisingly is a horrible film watching experience.

 

Anyone who says this film is some sort of undiscovered or unappreciated classic has clearly not watched it lately.  Between the muttering and terrible Robert Williams and the horrible musical numbers this viewer can only wonder what the heads of the Paramount and Disney studios who financed this thing must have thought watching this nightmare during the dailies if they even watched the dailies.

 

Complete garbage, not even worthy of a discussion.

114 minutes, written by Jules Feiffer who should have really known better.

1980 - SUPERMAN II, the sequel

The further adventures of "The Man of Steel" who in this film seems more like "The Man of Aluminum."  This time Superman must face down three villains from Krypton the old home planet in a big free for all fight in Metropolis.

Time has really dated the special effects in this film.  The flying sequences look very cheesy and the big destruction sequences are mostly models and miniatures not matching up very well with the actual sequences

Let's face it the character of Superman had always been kind of boring, so to keep the film interesting the villains get most of the good scenes.  After a while even they start to look a little boring as well, there are only so many push the "puny humans" scenes around that can be made interesting.

The director was Richard Lester who replaced the original director Richard Donner,  Lester had started off his career with frantic slapstick films, but his inventiveness had started to peter out in the late 70's.  Lester's slap stick scenes would seem to be perfect for a comic book film, but everything seems kind of flat and out of it as he goes through the motions.

Probably Gene Hackman still comes off best as Lex Luthor, hamming it up with the right mix of comic book movie bad guyness.

127 minutes