IT! (1967)
Roddy McDowall, Jill Haworth, Paul Maxwell, Alan Seller, Aubrey Richards, Ernest Clark, Ian McCulloch
Directed by Herbert J. Leder
[With no relation whatsoever to child-hating killer clowns in dank sewers, Prince Albert in a can, or rock fights set to Anthrax]. From Warner Bros.-Seven Arts and made in a send-up style of Hammer Horror, IT! is about the Jewish myth of the golem, an ancient Hebrew creature summoned by those who've been wronged, and dispatched to exact justice -- or revenge depending on one's point of view. In the role just before he would don monkey make-up for the next 7yrs; in 4 out of 5 pictures, and a short-lived CBS TV series, Roddy McDowall here plays mousy Arthur Pimm, a mama's boy, and London museum assistant. Like Norman Bates, he keeps his mother's mummified corpse which he talks to, adorns with "borrowed" jewelry and like Dr. Frankenstein, arrogantly plays God by controlling a mold of life; unaware at first that unleashing an abomination unto the world will only bring about catastrophic disaster. Pimm's path first begins after finding an undamaged stone artifact (go on, guess) that survived a museum warehouse fire and killed the curator, Harold Grove. Another museum death later, he discovers the secret to awakening the golem (with help from a local rabbi) by sticking a scroll in its mouth and using verbal commands. [Wait. How was the golem able to kill before being revived? Oops]. Anyways, moving between remorseful and crazed as he feels he's in line for a promotion, Pimm becomes obsessed with righting wrongs, and striking back at enemies real and imagined. He offs his uppity boss, and is corrupted by his power of using the indestructible monster.
With Scotland Yard sniffing behind him, Pimm is driven mad as he further broods about the woman he jealously desires, Ellen Grove (Harold's daughter) who has him permanently friendzoned. To impress her, he has the golem destroy London's Hammersmith Bridge. Huge, misguided turn-off. She doesn't reciprocate his advances and Pimm's lustful daydreams are all he has because Ellen is in love with his rival -- Jim, an American museum curator from New York, if that isn't the living end(!) Jim wants the golem for his collection, and doesn't buy Pimm's straightlaced charm for a second. He alerts a Police Inspector about Pimm being insane thanks to murder & mayhem. The officer finds the decomposed body of dear old Ma and has Pimm locked up in a lunatic asylum but the little weakling uses perceived telepathy(!) and busts out of the looney bin with the help of the golem. Once on the lam, he grabs his mother (now being kept with the undertaker), steals a hearse, kidnaps Ellen (who remains fabulously calm) and hides out in a country mansion. The golem pulls guard duty on the outside gates. Pimm and Ellen's 'reunion-straight-into-honeymoon-jazz' doesn't spell promise as Jim follows closely behind with the Inspector and the Army. Both men faceoff in a flamboyant fight for the damsel in distress. As Pimm finally came to his senses too late in actually having tried to destroy the monster, it will take a final climax against a nuclear warhead -- which if you believe the Army, will only affect anything within 5 miles, while observation will be safe behind sandbags. Yeah, right.
[The end comes with a farewell stroll into the sea which had me thinking that scene today could be played out to Procol Harum's 'A Whiter Shade of Pale']. First filmed in Germany in 1915, 1917, and 1920 combining for a trilogy; again in 1936 as a France-Czechoslovakia co-production; and Czechoslovakia once more in 1952 (the first in color), the interesting thing about 1967's crude golem (a pointy-headed, imposing walking statute that looks like a cross between a melted candle and a tree) is that I got a sense of some conflicted sentiment in the monster. For as its original purpose in Hebrew lore is an avenger meant to protect community, even if it didn't outright seem so, it felt as if there was a slight bit of reservation and anguish due to the chaos it is ordered to unleash, which is perhaps more of the curse it has to bear. (Or perhaps just down to the fixed expression on its face). Aka ANGER OF THE GOLEM, and CURSE OF THE GOLEM, this strange and silly movie (in its first English-language rendition) is an enjoyable matinée romp with an early McDowall who is a lot of fun with his campy & hammy performance akin to many a mad scientist, albeit much prissier. And by way of Pimm's dirty mind, it probably goes without saying that seeing Ellen in more semi-nude-manner would have been a bonus. In closing, IT! is also a take on the age-old warning of "when staring into the abyss, you'll see the reflection of your true self," and that man is sometimes tragically undone by becoming the ugly negative that he initially sought to destroy.
THE MUMMY (1959)
Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, George Pastell, Yvonne Furneaux, Felix Aylmer, Raymond Huntley, Eddie Byrne
Directed by Terence Fisher
Egypt 1895: British archaeologist John Banning (Cushing), with his father and uncle find the 4,000yr old tomb of Princess Ananka, the high priestess of the great god Karnak. Before entering the tomb, a devout Egyptian named Mehemet Bey warns all parties involved in the dig that graverobbers will meet an ancient curse of death. He is ignored, and amongst the priceless relics, father and uncle find Ananka's sarcophagus, with the father reading aloud from the Scroll of Life. This awakens Kharis (Lee), a mummified high priest who was Ananka's lover. When she died, he blasphemously tried to resurrect her and was punished with his tongue cut out, his body wrapped in bandages, and being sealed alive; condemned to guard the tomb for eternity. With Dad scared shitless into a vegetative state, the men are back in England with Dad in a Mental Institution. 3yrs have passed when he sends for John telling him that during the expedition, he unknowingly invoked Kharis who is coming to kill them for being desecrators. A vengeful Bey (under an alias) has followed the defilers with Kharis in a crate. An accident by a pair of drunken horse-carriage drivers, carrying the cargo to Bey's house, cause it to sink in a swamp. Worshipping Karnak, Bey uses the Scroll of Life to raise the speechless Kharis from the muddy marsh and orders him to seek retribution against the infidels. The still-confined father is murdered first, and then the uncle the next night with John shooting Kharis but to no avail. When John tells the Police Inspector who's investigating the 2 deaths about the mummy, the officer thinks John has flipped his wig but growing confirmation from the locals convinces him everyone might not be so crazy after all. Bey again summons Kharis (now residing in Bey's house) and sends him to kill John at his home. When Kharis see's that beautiful wife Isobel looks just like a reincarnated Ananka, he is completely transfixed and leaves, returning to Bey.
Bey prepares to haul ass back to Egypt thinking Kharis has completed their mission, but to his chagrin is paid an unexpected visit by the still-alive John who suspects him of being the wicked mastermind behind the evil deedery. Bey with Kharis pay John a housecall to finish him off for good. With his home guarded by police, Kharis knocks out the Inspector while Bey takes care of 2 other reinforcements. Once inside, Kharis is impaled by a spear which acts as little more than a splinter, and as he chokes a shouting John, Isobel rushes into the study and lets her hair down like Rapunzel, causing John to be released. Bey orders the distracted Kharis, who can't take his eyes off this spitting image, to kill Isobel but the command is refused. [Seriously, even as a monster, the loins of Kharis have considerably been stirred by Isobel]. Bey himself steps towards her with a knife, a defiant Kharis kills Bey instead by breaking his master's back like a snapped toothpick. Kharis carries the fainted wife into the swamp but John, the Inspector and a squad of officers arrive right behind them. Will Isobel be saved or will she sink with Kharis into the murky slime for a resumed eons-ago affair in a drowned afterlife? Often mistaken as a straight remake of Universal's 1932 same-named original that starred Boris Karloff, the 1959 version is infact a much-improved retelling that dry humps 3 out of 4 movies from the 1940s' Universal Mummy series -- a second wave that comprised THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940), THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1942), and THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944). [The last installment, THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944) continues several years after TMG]... Aside from taking plenty of the earlier elements, and helping to solidify Hammer Horror Studios as a major player, 1959's movie was the 7th collaboration of the immortal Cushing and Lee.
The 2 were very close friends & frequent co-stars as a fiend-and-foil tandem whom in a span of 35yrs, appeared together 24 times with their last film-pairing in 1983. [The duo's final work with each other was narrating FLESH AND BLOOD: THE HAMMER HERITAGE OF HORROR, a 2-part TV documentary. Sadly, Cushing died in August 1994, only 5 days after the program's broadcast]. Lee makes a splendid mummy; an aggressive killing machine with his 6'5 height enhancing both his slumbering pursuit of victims, and bulldozer-ish crashing through windows & doors. With his strong, jerky movements he is a physical, towering tour de force, and it's especially the depth of pathos in the eyes that betray his tragic fate. [And to say Lee was a trooper for the injuries he suffered on set would be an understatement: he had burn marks from being shot, dislocated a shoulder when he rammed into a door which was accidentally bolted shut, and threw out his back carrying Yvonne Furneaux]. Cushing as usual with his sophistication provides an excellent example of his ability to exchange & verbally duel when in conversation with an equally intelligent man -- seeing refined John and vindictive Bey politely but carefully circle each other while both know exactly who they are dealing with, masked with malice, is high craft. Furneaux as Isobel (whom along with Lee is in the lengthy and exotic flashback of how Kharis became the mummy) has a relatively light role here as she shows up in the last 25min of the movie. Oh, and a little history: some liberties have been taken here as 'Karnak' in reality is a location on the eastern bank of the Nile in Luxor, known for its complex of temples, rather than being the name of any deity. Ultimately, THE MUMMY is an exciting, well-paced, absolute staple in British horror that set the bar high. A superb classic in every sense of the word.
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