OK, so I flew into Dallas — no flight delays, yay! — and got picked up at DFW by Chad R. He took me to LJS for dinner (postponed from my previous trip when my flight was delayed 11 hours) and then we headed to Chez Petersen. As noted before, Sandy and Wendy have moved to Utah and are renting out their Dallas home, although that state of affairs may be ending soon. Since the Petersens wouldn’t arrive until the next day (Friday), Chad and I took advantage to watch a lot of bad dramas, since we’re the only ones who love those.
Hence we opened with The VIPS, about a bunch of rich people (principally Burton and Taylor, but also Rod Taylor, Maggie Smith, Louis Jourdan and Orson Welles) fogged into the London airport and the sudsy consequences. Chad noted this wasn’t terrible, and it’s not, but it’s certainly not good. Taylor particularly is victimized by a script that see her mopey the entire flick. Oddly the elderly Margaret Rutherford–yes, cinema’s Ms. Marple–won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role. Seven years later another veteran actress, Helen Hayes, won the same award for the somewhat similar Airport.
If I could find a still I could import into Imgur our next flick, Moonstalker aka The Preditor: Quietus (?) would be our first Fest MotD. Middle aged Brit actor Cliff Twemlow starred in a series of 11 cheapie flicks. I’d never heard of the guy until Severin put out a typically swank and extra-filled box set featuring all his films. This is the only one I’ve ever seen, and it’s certainly not Andy Milligan-level rubbish, as it’s fairly well made technically. The boring script does the film no favors though.
We finished Thursday by watching A Place for Lovers, which is basically a more serious (?) version of Sweet November. I had high hopes for this one, starring Faye Dunaway and Marcello Mastroianni as lovers who begin a predictably doomed romance. The movie had been featured in the Medved Brother’s seminal 50 Worst Films of All Time, largely responsible for setting down the bad movie road. Sadly, the film isn’t terrible, as Chad can confirm. It’s certainly not great, but again it’s probably a four or five out of ten. Apparently Mastroianni is often mocked for his acting in this one, but you couldn’t tell it from me. He’s got a ripe scene or two but is generally fine.
Friday began with The Betsy, a multi-generational tale of the family who runs an automobile brand. This was pretty fun, having lots of sex and pretty silly melodrama, and the weird acting differences between modern actors Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duval vs Laurence Olivier’s gleeful old-school scenery chewing. Olivier was in his Thick Phony Accent period (Marathon Man, The Jazz Singer, Inchon, etc.) and he sports one here, but none of us could tell what he was even trying for. Still, this was fun.
Chad had bought a pretty dodgy gray market copy of Key of Keys (1965), the Japanese spy movie Woody Allen built What’s Up Tiger Lilly around. There’s a series of these and somebody has to release a box set of them. Severin, are you listening?
Finally, some monsters! Last year I had brought the 1960 supernatural samurai epic The Demon of Mount Oe to the weekend. It was much beloved, but sadly the disc had schmutz on it and wouldn’t play about 40 minutes in the middle of the film. Once home I got it clean so I brought it back. The spider above was part of what we missed, and it was great seeing it. The movie is available as part of the three film set Daiei Gothic Vol 2 or as a separate disc. The first set sold out almost immediately but Radiance was nice enough to release the films as standalones after that. Highly recommended.
