Gobsmacking Cinema: THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN (1938)

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall at this meeting:

"Okay, so you want funding for your movie. What's the story?"

"It's a tale of good versus evil, love and revenge, and it's set in the wild, wild west."

"You mean it's a western?"

"Well, yes."

"Been there, done that. Isn't there anything original about it?"

"Well, yes, this will be a musical western."

"A musical western? And you call that original?"

"Um... did I mention that it's a musical western with an all-midget cast?"

By way of a disclaimer I should say that the above conversation probably never took place - but you have to wonder, given that we still ended up with the cowboy craziness that is THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN.

The story is a simple one - villain terrorises town and rustles animals while useless sheriff does nothing until a brave cowboy comes along to save the day, falling in love and mending family ties while he does it. It's the stuff of western legend, albeit usually taking place a couple of feet further from the ground.

The film is truly awful - the acting is uniformly terrible and the few songs in the picture are even worse. But just as gobsmacking is the very notion that someone thought there was a market for a western comprised entirely of little people.

It would be nice to think that the people responsible for this film were making it as a way of securing work for actors who ordinarily might have struggled to get such roles. Unfortunately I find it difficult to accept this notion since several factors all point to it being purely for the purposes of exploitation - the way the film was promoted; the idea that the entire cast had to be midgets; the fact that the same mind that gave us this had already churned out the equally gimmicky HARLEM ON THE PRAIRIE (the first all-black western); and on top of all that there's an opening scene featuring the two leads and the only appearance of a non-midget which adopts an obviously patronising tone towards the cast.

Perhaps the most enjoyable factor of the film is the black-clad villain of the piece who, when not riding around with his gang on their little ponies, is busy trying to all manner of villainous things while looking about as scary as Wee Jimmy Krankie.

Actually, the more I think of Wee Jimmy Krankie, the more I think that a grown woman making a career out of dressing as a schoolboy is pretty scary after all... But I still wouldn't cast her in a western.

The triumphant return of the heist movie

Last week I went to see Spike Lee's INSIDE MAN. The main reason was that I love old heist movies from decades long past and having enjoyed the remake of OCEAN'S ELEVEN a few years back I wanted to see if that was a one-off or if they could still make heist movies like they used to.

Perhaps I should mention a few of the older films I'm talking about to get a sense of where I'm coming from.

There's the original OCEAN'S ELEVEN - the rat pack act all cool while planning an ambitious Vegas robbery. Great cast, reasonable heist, predictable but humorous ironic ending. And if you ever fancy a decent movie trivia question, try naming how many of the eleven from this film and how many of the eleven from the remake you can name (my personal best is 17 out of 22 if you're interested).

THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS was a joint production between various European countries and is a poor man's OCEAN'S ELEVEN. The heist is less epic but still interesting; the acting is exceptionally ropey (complimented by awful dialogue dubbed over a variety of actors) but if nothing else at least the cast is an interesting one. There's Gary Lockwood (the guy that gets cut loose by Hal in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), top Euro-babe Elke Sommer and the pairing of Lee J Cobb and Jack Palance, both playing the same characters they always play. The ending comes as no surprise to any viewer of heist movies.

RIFIFI was a French affair that was part heist movie, part film noir and entirely brilliant - the highlight though has to be a very lengthy and dialogue-free sequence in the middle of the film when the heist is carried out. It's ingenious and incredibly tense but, best of all, it features the most brilliant use of an umbrella that you'll ever see.

THE DAY THEY ROBBED THE BANK OF ENGLAND sees the action move to this side of the pond and boasts the presence of Peter O'Toole and Aldo Ray among others, in a period tale of a gang out to rip-off the Bank of England in order to fund Irish republicans.

One of my personal favourites is another European production boasting an international cast. GRAND SLAM features Hollywood legend Edward G Robinson, Janet "don't go near the shower" Leigh, everyone's favourite German lunatic Klaus Kinski and that foreign guy who was in Thunderball, whose name I can't remember. (What, you expected cutting edge journalism?) The action takes place primarily in Rio, where the gang are going to rob a secure vault in the middle of the carnival.

Edward G Robinson also pops up briefly in THE BIGGEST BUNDLE OF THEM ALL, which has a great score by Riz Ortolani, a decent lead in the shape of Robert Wagner, and Raquel Welch doing nothing but being eye-candy (albeit making an exceptionally good job of it). It's enjoyable enough, but pretty much a pale imitation of many other such films.

The thing about these heist movies is that they all boast more-or-less the same formula. A criminal mastermind will bring together a crack squad of fellow criminals and hatch an ambitious and complicated plot to rob somewhere of a huge amount of money. That heist will then form a major part of the film when we see all the elaborate ways in which the criminals overcome the seemingly unbeatable security systems in place. Then, just as it seems they're getting away with it (and sorry if this spoils anything for you) they will inevitably be undone in the closing scenes with a twist ending that results in them losing all the money.

So how rigidly does INSIDE MAN follow this formula? Well, in every way that it counts, it's a typical heist movie. The majority of the film details Clive Owen's gang's clever ruse to gain the riches in a seemingly secure bank vault while Denzel Washington's cop trails behind. So far so good. But what of the conclusion?

Since the characters in the film are not as clear-cut as in many of the classic heist movies (instead of good guys and bad guys we have a good guy, some bad guys, a really bad guy and a woman about whom we're just not sure), it seems only fitting that the twist in the tail of INSIDE MAN isn't particularly straightforward either. It's a twist that has left some viewers cold but I found it extremely satisfying. All in all, it was two hours well spent and I'd encourage you to see it.

Since today's post is all about heist movies, I thought I'd play along and pay tribute to the formula myself. So now you've had the elaborate details (i.e. me waffling a load of codswallop about old movies), here comes the twist...

...the twist being that you all expected a twist but I couldn't think of one, so instead it just ends really abruptly.

Confronting history

Michael Haneke's recent film CACHE [that's HIDDEN for those of you who don't parlez Francais] was highlighted by critics as being his most accessible picture yet, though it still managed to baffle and/or bore numerous audience members. It certainly raised plenty of questions through its twisting tail of mystery and (maybe) revenge and had me thinking about it for days afterwards.

Many however have pointed out that the questions raised relating to what exactly is happening in the film are merely the tip of the iceberg; that the really powerful questions are the ones being asked of the French people. The film makes numerous references to an infamous incident in the early 1960s when huge numbers of pro-Algerian demonstrators were injured or killed while protesting in France. It's an incident that hasn't been widely spoken about in France in the decades since and it is that confrontation of past transgressions that many people have picked up on as a key element in the film.

But HIDDEN isn't alone in that regard recently. Just a couple of years ago, critics and audiences were stunned the world over by DOWNFALL, the tale of the last few days in the life of Hitler and what went on in his secret bunker as their war effort collapsed around them. Powerful performances dominated the film but none more so than Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler. And yet despite its credentials (DOWNFALL is certainly one of the best war movies I've ever seen), what grabbed most of the attention was not that a film like this had been made but rather that it had been made by Germans.

Just last night I saw another film that saw a country confront an uncomfortable event from its past. ILLUMINADOS POR EL FUEGO [BLESSED BY FIRE] is an Argentinian film that, through the flashbacks of a veteran at the bedside of a former comrade, takes an unflinching look at the war in the Falklands.

While not quite in the same league as the opening scenes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, the film's numerous scenes of battle are brutal and uncompromising, and paint a horrific portrait of the lives of Argentinian soldiers before, during and after the battle. The suffering and pain on the battlefield is only compounded by the disillusionment and distress after it is all over, as they return home to apathy and ignorance rather than the expected heroes' welcome. While not shy to criticise its own country's actions, the film is even less shy about taking a shot at the British, finally closing the film with a dedication to those who lost their lives on the Belgrano.

It's all getting grim and heavy here so it's time for one of my patented facetious tangents. The idea of countries finally breaking taboos and confronting uncomfortable events from their past, of breaking their silence through film and accepting responsibility, has inspired me. I have just come up with my own idea for a similar movie.

It begins in a secondary school in Scotland, in particular a second-year class in religious studies. A young boy (let's just call him Mr A) decides, for no apparent reason, to light a match in the middle of the classroom. Smelling the burning in the air, he quickly extinguishes it but the smell has been noticed by others. Several classmates inform the teacher that it was bound to be the work of Mr A as "he did it in a history class once as well". Despite a punishing cross examination, Mr A escapes punishment due to his convincing denial and a lack of evidence.

Cut to the scene some fifteen years later, and the now adult Mr A finally caves in to his conscience and reveals through a seemingly random blog entry that in fact, yes, he was responsible and the lack of evidence was due to the deft way in which he managed to sneak the burnt match into his shoe at the crucial moment. That's right, former classmates, it was inside the shoe all along.

His confession aired, Mr A can finally put to rest the guilt and inner demons that have wrestled inside him for the last fifteen years, as the last echoes of countless fire prevention public information films are at last swept from his mind.

And if it turns out to be any good, I've got a whole load of ideas for sequels...

Love means never having to use a handbrake

Ryan O'Neal turned 65 today.

It's not that I think 65 is a particular landmark (well, not without being reduced to talking about pensions again) or even that I'm a big fan of Mr O'Neal - in fact, I believe I've only ever seen two of his films. But since I happened to watch them both recently it's as good an excuse as any to have a wee chat about them.

THE DRIVER is a movie from the late 70s in which O'Neal plays a getaway driver who sells his services to the underworld (he's really good at his job, you see). He's mean and moody, hard as nails and drives like a complete mentalist. Throw into the mix all kinds of other shady characters including Isabelle Adjani (who is pretty much there as eye candy to be honest) and Bruce Dern as the cop who is out to do more than just give O'Neal a few speeding tickets.

The movie's strengths are many. The cast all excel as villanous hardcases, the action sequences are superb (we all love a good car chase) and the city streets at night have never seemed so seedy and dangerous. These are all ingredients that director Walter Hill perfected shortly after this film when he made THE WARRIORS, another film populated with characters you shouldn't like and yet can't help liking, more thrilling action sequences and once more the streets of New York as some kind of otherworldly neon-lit gladiatorial arena.

I heartily recommend a double bill of THE DRIVER and THE WARRIORS if you're ever having the lads round on a Saturday night. That seems a bit of a sexist thing to say perhaps, but I'm going to stay in that vein when I suggest that the other film I'm going to mention is probably more popular with women.

If you've only seen O'Neal as a hardcase in THE DRIVER, you're probably going to have a rather different view when watching him in the contrasting film from a few years earlier that made him a star... LOVE STORY.

If you've never seen LOVE STORY (and if not, why not?) the story is a simple one. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy and girl marry against everyone's wishes and love triumphs in the face of all adversity... then girl contracts terminal illness. Yep, it's a weepy - together with DEBBIE DOES DALLAS, it's the kind of film that is worshipped and adored by tissue manufacturers the world over.

The lovestruck couple, played by O'Neal and Ali MacGraw, are an oddball pair (he's from a rich, well-educated family while she is obviously from the poor side of town - that's how these stories work, don't you know) and are not entirely likable when we first meet them. But then the story builds sympathy for them through the troubles they face until eventually you can't help but feel for them. Unless you're a heartless cynic, which I'll get to in a moment.

The sentimental tone of the film is definitely helped by the memorable theme music, which I confess I find myself singing on a regular basis - though if you're going to pick up a copy, I'd recommend Andy Williams' version as it's slightly superior to the recording on the forthcoming album SINGING IN THE SHOWER: ALAN MURDERS YOUR FAVOURITE LOVE SONGS.

The only snag for many people viewing LOVE STORY (well, men mainly) is that it is so sentimental and full of romantic cliches that by the time the inevitable heartbreak begins the male audience will have divided evenly into two - those who are swept up in the tale of enduring love, reduced hopelessly to a quivering wreck crying into their Doritos; and the other half, who are so atuned against such sentimental weepies that by the time the film approaches the end they're ready to cheer when MacGraw's character finally gets round to popping her clogs.

I know what you're thinking. Which of those two camps do I fall into?

Well, I have to admit that - hey, wait a minute, is that the time already? I'd best be going. Some other time perhaps...

Misery, suffering and nastiness

After my defence of sentimentality in films recently I felt it was time to redress the balance and hail the resurgence in misery, suffering and mean-spirited nastiness in modern films.

First of all, I just recently saw PIERREPOINT which isn't exactly a downer of a movie but it concerns one of Britain's last executioners, how he became the best at his job and the effect that killing hundreds of people has on a person. It's not the most depressing film you'll ever see but it's certainly pretty miserable. But then you can tell that even before you enter the cinema anyway, thanks to a tradition stretching back decades in British cinema.

The rule is this: if you are going to see a British film in which everyone has a well-spoken and/or posh accent, it's either a period literary adaptation or a romantic comedy - in either case you're probably not going to be too down after it. On the other hand, if everyone has a regional dialect (particularly northern England) then the chances are the film is going to be full of misery and suffering. Trust me, this rule works for 9 out of every 10 British films.

Accordingly, PIERREPOINT (littered with northern accents) is this year's VERA DRAKE in the miserable Brit stakes. Worth a watch but if you must see one downbeat British film this year, then so far I'd plump for SHOOTING DOGS instead, a superb drama set during the Rwandan massacre. It's like HOTEL RWANDA, only more religion-friendly.

Neither film can top the despair and misery present in THE 3 ROOMS OF MELANCHOLIA however, an arty documentary I watched the other day about the effects of the Chechen conflict on children. It's not the most engrossing film and disappears up its own arse for long periods at a time but the middle segment, in which a woman takes three kids away from their mother in Grozny who is too ill to look after them, might just be the most heartbreaking scene ever committed to celluloid.

In addition to watching a few miserable films I've recently been celebrating the long awaited return of the "nasty" horror film. After the 1970s, horror films seemed to become overly sanitised or had to be witty or ironic in some way - nobody seemed interested in just plain nastiness anymore.

Thankfully there's been a resurgence recently with the likes of: WOLF CREEK, an Aussie tale of backpackers falling victim to a rather unpleasant man in the outback; HAUTE TENSION [aka SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE], a good old fashioned horror flick from France in which the gore is dished out in great abundance and people made to suffer horribly; SAW (and its enjoyable sequel), which features elabourate deathtraps designed to kill and mutilate people in some very nasty ways; HOSTEL, the second film from CABIN FEVER director Eli Roth which sees young backpackers being tortured horribly (again), this time in Eastern Europe; and THE HILLS HAVE EYES, a recent remake of a rather average 70s horror. The remake, also pretty average it has to be said, was directed by Alexandre Aja, who gave us the aforementioned HAUTE TENSION and gives us plenty of meanness this time around too.

You know, I don't actually think I'm going anywhere with this post, I just felt like celebrating miserable and nasty films. But then the lack of a conclusion seems quite fitting in this instance because in talking about films like this a happy ending doesn't really seem appropriate...

Gobsmacking Cinema: FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY (1979)

Stay with me, this is all going somewhere, honest. It all began in a video rental place in Harrogate many years ago. I was but a young lad and had wandered in to see what delights they had on their shelves. I wasn't a member of said establishment (living hundreds of miles away, it would have been a bit silly) but they were closing down and selling off all their remaining tapes. My browsing didn't take too long as they'd sold almost everything but I did pick up a couple of old VHS tapes - one of which was WHEELS OF FIRE.

WHEELS OF FIRE was a film made in the early 1980s in the Philipines and is a low-budget post-apocalyptic affair that amounts to nothing more than a very bad rip-off of MAD MAX 2 [aka THE ROAD WARRIOR if you're reading this in America]. I bought it because I've always loved anything with a post-apocalyptic flavour to it, and it ended up being a purchase that has had a massive (though some might say not entirely healthy, or even understandable) impact on my movie watching habits.

You see, it began my love of two aspects of cinema. The first is the string of MAD MAX 2 and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK impersonators (mainly Italian) that littered the video stores of the 1980s - you wouldn't believe how many there are and, sadder still, you wouldn't believe how many of them I've managed to collect over the years.

The second effect the film had was similar to the first, but slightly more wide-ranging. It kickstarted a love of the entire idea of low-budget, craply-made, foreign rip-offs of well known films. The Italians were particularly good at it, but other countries got in on the act too (some of Turkey's attempts are incredible and actually go as far as stealing scenes and music directly from other films). But it was a Filipino film that started my love of such trash, and it is to the Philipines I return today, to look at the gobsmacking epic that is FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY (sic).

A shameless rip-off of the James Bond franchise, FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY features a chap by the name of Weng Weng as Agent 00, who gets involved in fighting a crimelord after saving a young woman from an assassin's bullet. I'm not entirely sure which is funnier - the inept staging of the rescue scene or the woman's calm, deadpan revelation that she gets shot at every week, as if it's the sort of thing that happens to young ladies all the time.

So our adventure begins and we are treated to such sights as Agent 00 practicing his unique brand of martial arts (most of it centres around kicking men in the balls), flying through the air on a jetpack that is clearly suspended on wires, and indulging in all kinds of death-defying and laughably executed action sequences.

There's also the poorly-disguised rip-off of the James Bond theme tune; the atrocious acting; the cringe-inducing dialogue, which for example frequently sees the bad guys refer to themselves as "the forces of evil" and such like; the Bond-style gadgets that include X-ray specs (which Weng Weng obviously has to try out on a couple of women) and a radio-controlled flying hat; and then there's the dubbing. The dubbing is one of the funniest aspects of the film because as if the dialogue and acting weren't already bad enough we have the sight of Asian actors being dubbed in accents ranging from New York to upper-class English. Absolutely brilliant.

Now I know what you're thinking - it sounds like a really bad movie (so bad it is absolutely hilarious, I assure you) but what's so gobsmacking about it? Well, there's one extra special ingredient that takes it into the upper echelons of jaw-on-the-floor exploitation cinema. Go back and read the last few paragraphs again, this time armed with the knowledge that Weng Weng is a 3-feet-tall Filipino midget...

Get your hankies ready

If you're a bloke you've probably just misinterpreted the above heading completely so let me start off by saying that if you're expecting an appraisal of certain European films of the 1970s you're out of luck.

The spark of inspiration for today's rambling monologue was a recent trip to the cinema to see THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN, a thoroughly pleasing feel-good movie starring Anthony Hopkins as an older gentleman who traveled from down under to the USA to break a land speed record in the 1960s (using an old motorbike from the 1920s).

The tale, inspired by the real life story of speed enthusiast Burt Munro, sees Hopkins make the lengthy journey to the USA, touching the lives of various people along the way and overcoming all kinds of adversity in order to live his dream. In many ways it's like David Lynch's equally feel-good THE STRAIGHT STORY, only with more motorbikes and less lawnmowers.

Reviews have been kind, and deservedly so, but display a worrying pattern that has become all too prevalent in the cinema of the last few decades. They all seem to be along the lines of "unashamedly sentimental but..." - as if somehow this is a negative thing. I've no idea when it occurred exactly (my guess is sometime during the 1960s) but at some point in the past sentimentality in movies became illegal. I'd like to know why.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a cynic. I like bleak movies where everyone dies at the end and I've certainly received more than my fair share of enjoyment at watching innocents being torn limb from limb by bloodthirsty hoardes of the undead. However, I still can't understand why it is that a film that is made to make people feel happy is a bad thing. Why did a description such as "sentimental and wonderful" one day have to be replaced by "sentimental but wonderful"? One little word, yet it makes all the difference. I am on a mission to eradicate the "but" from the above phrase and reclaim the "and".

I enjoy watching the melodramas that Douglas Sirk churned out in the 1950s (in fact, I really ought to write something dedicated solely to them sometime) - sure, they're standard women's weepies that seem to consist mainly of assorted leading ladies swooning and crying while Rock Hudson acts all manly, but they look great and nobody makes films like them anymore. Somewhere along the way, it was decided for us that people don't want films like this.

I also love to watch Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE on Christmas Eve every year - does that make me some kind of freak? No, I don't think so. Well, not any more than I already am, at least. And is it wrong to cry like a little girl when the cast of CAROUSEL start cranking out "You'll Never Walk Alone"?

Furthermore, is there anything wrong with celebrating the work of Michael Powell, Britain's greatest ever film maker, by choosing to watch one of his more sentimental efforts such as A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH or I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING? No, because they're great films. Not despite of their sentimentality either - rather because of it.

At a festival last year I saw a lovely little film entitled MARILYN HODGKISS' BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL, starring Robert Carlyle, John Goodman and a whole host of other well-known stars. It's sentimental, it's nostalgic, it's emotionally manipulative... but it makes you feel good, so where's the harm? And yet, as I type, it has only just received a very, very limited release in the US and as yet I've heard no word of any UK theatrical release. Maybe I'm wrong and people just aren't ready for sentiment unless it's part of an inane romantic comedy.

So the object of today's sermon is simply to strike a blow against movie-going cynics everywhere. If THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN is still playing near you, go and see it. When it's over and you've enjoyed it (because you will enjoy it) tell all your friends. And don't be ashamed to mention the fact that it's an emotionally manipulative, unashamedly sentimental, feel-good story. Just make sure that when you do describe it as such you don't follow it up with "but..."