Rock's Cheapo Theatre of the Damned

Huh, okay, I don't remember that scene at all. Clearly it needs a rewatch, although I'm not sure I'll get to it this month...before it leaves streaming forever!!!!!!!!!

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Everybody talks about the shot in Billy Wilder's The Apartment where we see Jack Lemmon in his office, the rigid symmetry of which provides a certain dehumanizing, soul crushing quality. But I think it's worth bringing up for comparison the way this movie presents its protagonist's office. When we see it during the day, this insurance office is lively, bustling with activity, and the energy of the work is palpable. This is a movie where one of the central characters is a crack insurance claims investigator played by Edward G. Robinson, and as a result is maybe the only movie I can think of that makes the insurance business look cool or makes an insurance man a good guy. But you see this office at night, once at the beginning and once at the end, and the environment is less invigorating in this context. If you look closely at how the tables are lined up, it perhaps even resembles the way the crosses and tombstones might be arranged in a cemetery, and as a result casts a funereal pall over the proceedings sandwiched in between. Which is appropriate as when we first meet our protagonist, an insurance salesman played by Fred MacMurray, he's bleeding to death from a gunshot wound and offering a confession, which can be alternately seen as self-serving and totally unflattering, depending on the scene.

This sense of geometry carries over to other key scenes, like the ones in the supermarket, first where MacMurray plans the murder with iconic femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck, and later where they figure out how to play it cool in the aftermath. The environment at first seems perfectly banal, the relative activity allowing a discreet meeting in plain sight. But then you see how that banality manifests in the geometry, with the aisles squeezed a little too closely, to the point that MacMurray and Stanwyck have to move apart every time someone comes by to pick up a can of baby food. And you grasp the deadening, suffocating quality of the environment, and you understand why Stanwyck might want to kill her husband, as an escape not just from a marriage to an unkind husband, but an entirely unfulfilling existence. And you grasp why it's difficult to keep cool in the aftermath of the murder, as this existence is so deadening and so suffocating that being freed from it takes on a certain urgency. This won't make sense to anyone outside of a select few who used to post on a certain defunct internet forum, but I remember a wildly hyperbolic comparison a poster once made about how awful it was to live in the suburbs, and I have to wonder if they'd ever seen this movie.

Actually, a clear understanding of geometry carries over to the dialogue scenes, of which there are many, as this is a fast talking classic starring some of the best fast talkers in the history of cinema. It's tempting to say this movie would work as a radio play given how good the dialogue is, but that would undersell Wilder's keen visual direction. You can see how precisely the actors are blocked in scenes like the one where a witness to the crime comes to Robinson's office, and how the arrangement of their bodies draws our attention to MacMurray's expression as the witness helps Robinson uncover inconsistencies in what were previously understood to be the events that transpired. Going for a close-up might seem redundant at this point, but it's not without impact, as MacMurray's face makes him uniquely suitable to this role. He has a kind, almost swollen face, which serves him well in jovial roles like The Absent-Minded Professor, which is how I'd known him before seeing this movie. But it also highlights that he's very much not a strong, alpha male type, and in fact might be the type whose moral fiber is weak enough to be persuaded into committing a murder for insurance money. MacMurray's rounded edges are a strong contrast with Stanwyck's sharp edges, and the eerie effect of the sunglasses she puts on, and the daggers of ice one can feel from her eyes when she takes them off. And of course, the absolute king of the fast talkers is Robinson, whose affection and love for MacMurray are a warm counterpoint to the sexual tension and sinister scheming between MacMurray and Stanwyck. When he arrives at the end and sees MacMurray bleeding out, he seems disappointed, almost wounded.

When the king of the fast talkers slows down, it means something.

That's one of my all-time favorites.

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Letterboxd

I gotta hand it to The Evil That Men Do in at least one respect. I'm not used to Cannon Films productions displaying a nuanced understanding of foreign affairs, and for the most part, even ones I like a lot (I'm a sucker for The Delta Force), present a world where members of the global south are mostly trying to kill us and the only solution to these problems is to head down to third world countries and shoot the place up. (I'm not endorsing, just describing.) But here, it actually tries to present problems in these countries with a bit more nuance. The plot here involves an evil (probably English) doctor who hops between South American dictatorships to teach them the fine art of torture presumably as part of the Dirty War. The doctor's victims are countless, and our hero, a retired CIA assassin played by Charles Bronson, out of the goodness of his heart goes back to work to take this scumbag down. The movie does hedge its bets by showing him working with a corrupt, rogue American diplomat (instead of the full cooperation of the US government) and doesn't explicitly identify how the evil dictatorship is aligned. But if you kinda, sorta read between the lines, it's heart is in the right place.

And for a movie where Charles Bronson goes around ****ing up bad guys, it does make an effort to be a bit more than a pure exercise in Bronson-****-up-ery. Bronson is persuaded to go into action after watching countless videotapes of statements by the doctor's victims. The movie wants us to see the inhabitants of these countries as actual people and sympathize with their plight, even if its solution (Bronson flying down and ****ing up the bad guys) may have limited applicability in real life. The movie also has Bronson take a woman and her daughter to pretend to be his wife and child as part of his cover. This is useful in contriving scenarios where Bronson's mission is jeopardized, but also helps humanize Bronson in their interactions together. We see that Bronson isn't just a ruthless killing machine but a man who actually cares and has feelings, even if they're buried under his leathery, cynical exterior. You can see him in the later Death Wish sequels where he's purely an instrument of violence, capable of barely any expression other than steely-eyed detachment, and you can see here that he feels like a real person, and maybe even capable of warmth, even if the cruel world in which he operates has something to say about it. I actually think it's a pretty good performance.

This is directed by J. Lee Thompson, best known for classics like Cape Fear and The Guns of Navarone, but at this time was directing Bronson vehicles and other schlock for Cannon Films. This is perhaps not the best example of his craftsmanship, but actually sees him relatively engaged, like in a scene where Bronson tries to kidnap the doctor's sister, where you can see how he builds tension by moving the camera along the angles of the house's interior. (I will say that while I think overall this movie is less slimy than I expected, the throwaway T&A used to establish the sister's lesbianism disquieted me at least a little, in that it seemed to conflate it with the genuine evil she's guilty of.) When the action shifts to the countryside, the movie takes on a pleasing western flavour that makes the whole thing feel a little classier than the average Cannon joint. And of course, there is plenty of grime, both in the ugly torture sequences, and all the choice scenes of Bronson ****ing people up, including one in which he pulls a guy's dick so hard he passes out. (The guy, not Bronson.)

Maybe I was lulled by the relative humanism of The Evil That Men Do, but I watch my share of sleazy, morally bankrupt garbage, and it's been a while since I've watched something as upsetting as Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. The plot here, about Charles Bronson trying to take down a pimp who peddles child prostitutes, might raise a lot of red flags, although one can concede that a Bronson vehicle can be extremely sleazy and still work on a lizard brain level (see: Death Wish II, which combines all the ugliest elements of the vigilante thriller into one neat little package). And the fact that the pimp and his sidekick are played by Juan Fernandez and Sy Richardson, the former who played a memorable character in Oliver Stone's sweaty, drug-fueled Salvador and the latter of which is a regular figure in Alex Cox's stock company, might offer some promise in terms of delicious bad guys deserving of whatever gruesome comeuppance Bronson will serve them.

But the movie doesn't settle for just that. There's also a hideously racist subplot about a Japanese businessman who sees a woman being groped on a train in Tokyo, and with his disturbing desires inflamed, decides to try that out after coming to American on Bronson's daughter, which are depicted in two agonizingly drawn out scenes. This businessman's daughter is kidnapped by the pimp, and while her arc ends one a thoroughly dispiriting note of suicide, the narrative thread around his attempted molestation of Bronson's daughter is inexplicably dropped. Why? The movie was content to get in its racist jabs and leave it at that? I've spent the last few weeks watching movies that offered not entirely positive portrayals of other cultures, but in those cases, the movies would offer certain nuances or grace notes to complicate or alleviate the portrayals. But this movie has no real interest in the Japanese, just fear and disgust, eager to depict them as evil perverts who are trying to take over. (There's a vicious racist rant by Bronson that the movie basically agrees with. Also, this might be the only American movie of this era to acknowledge what hentai is.) But then it shows that America has its share of evil perverts, which it demonstrates most forcefully in the scene where the Japanese businessman's daughter is raped in sequence by the pimp and her associates while Seinfeld-style bass blares on the soundtrack. The least racist read of this movie is that there are in fact evil perverts to go around. One imagines a sequel to this movie would have Bronson hopping from country to country killing evil perverts in airport bathrooms during each layover.

Of course, as this is a Bronson vehicle, he must go outside the law to get the bad guys off the streets, which we see him do first by jamming a dildo up a john's ass and later shoving an expensive watch down the pimp's throat. One wonders if Bronson might be better at sending bad guys to prison if he didn't force foreign objects into their orifices so readily, but these are the kind of sleazy thrills you go to see a Bronson vehicle for, especially in this era. And there are odd moments that are enjoyable on that level (I had a bit of fun with a scene where Bronson breaks up a porn shoot where the crew seems to be snorting up the budget), but this is also a movie where Bronson is replaced by an obvious body double anytime he needs to be spry and the movie mysteriously renders Richardson unable to kick down a door when it needs to tie up a plot thread. It is not a tightly directed thriller, is what I'm saying, which is disappointing as this was the final film directed by J. Lee Thompson and a very theatrical late role by Bronson. Thompson has directed some great movies like The Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear, as well as one pretty good Bronson vehicle in The Evil That Men Do. But the overwhelming feeling here is one of exhaustion, with Bronson complaining every other scene about how he doesn't want to do this anymore, and the presence of both men pared down to their most base, ugly instincts, their ids unleashed on screen.

So if you wanna wallow in the filth, this might be worth a look, but you'll need an hour-long shower after. If there's one thing it's good at, it's making your skin crawl.

Went from one of the classiest movies in the thread to one of the sleaziest, in the same page.

I see Hud is coming to the Criterion Channel month. It’s like they’re trying their darnedest to class up my viewing for this year.

We’ll see if they succeed.

Apparently in her hardcore features, Doris Wishman delegated the filming of the sex scenes to an assistant director. One wishes that she delegated them to an assistant director who had some semblance of style, as in Come With Me My Love and here, they feel entirely anonymous, lacking the personality that comes with Wishman's own hand. That being said, the sex scenes here are better than in the other movie, largely thanks to the presence of Annie Sprinkle. To an extent, the enjoyment that one gets out of such scenes is driven by their affection for the performers involved, and the ones here feature Sprinkle, Bree Anthony and C.J. Laing (who has hiccups for some reason and disappears after her one scene). But Sprinkle in particular has an irrepressible good cheer and magnetism that goes a long way in alleviating any tawdriness that might be present otherwise. I mean, she came out of an especially sleazy scene in Phil Prince's Oriental Techniques in Pain and Pleasure without seeming like she was demeaned, and this is quite a bit less scuzzy than that. In fact, there are two scenes with Bobby Astyr that other movies might have opted to play for grim and mean spirit but here actually come off as pretty...well, warm is a strong word, but they're surprisingly easy to watch given the setups. (That being said, having to look at Bobby Astyr's face repeatedly in the heat of the moment might make this harder to watch for some, but that's kind of mean to say.) I suppose the very last sex scene is made with some artistic flair, captured with photonegative footage and accompanied by an atmospheric, psyched out funk score.

So this is better pornography than Come With Me My Love, but I would argue it's a lesser Doris Wishman movie. The almost wall to wall sex scenes might have played better with the raincoat brigade, but drown out most traces of Wishman's personality. Like that movie, there's a lot more sync sound than I expected, which means that it arguably feels less cheap than the average Wishman joint. The apartment in which this is set appears to be pretty uninteresting for much of the runtime, until late in the movie when we notice the combination of a hideous foliage-like pattern on the sofa and the angry green shag carpeting. Arguably Wishman's presence is felt most strongly in the narration of Sprinkle's thoughts, provided by Wishman herself. I laughed every time, and also at the extremely nasally exchange between Anthony's mother and fiance.

The plot here has Anthony getting engaged to some dude who Sprinkle wants to make jealous by having lots and lots of sex. At one point, their mother calls Sprinkle over to tell her the news about the engagement, only to chastise her for showing up practically undressed. (This is recurring theme in the movie.) If you read the title and hoped for a literal Satan, preferably with horns, a tail, a trident and a red catsuit, maybe even Annie Sprinkle in said catsuit, poking people with her trident and getting in a few chuckles, you will be sorely disappointed. The Satan here refers to the sins of woman or something, I dunno, I didn't read the Bible. But if Sprinkle is Satan here, she plays the role in the same vein as the one in Petey Wheatstraw, who was kind enough to grant Rudy Ray Moore magic powers to get back at the standup comedians who had all his friends and family killed and even set up an orgy for him with some pretty nice looking demon ladies, for the not unreasonable condition that Moore marries his monstrously ugly daughter (on the outside, we have no reason to suspect she's a bad person on the inside; also Moore naturally tries to weasel out of the deal). Sprinkle brings joy to the world by having nonstop sex and generally refusing to put her clothes on. Is that so wrong? She's making people happy.

Anyway, this is mostly loosely connected scenes of ****ing and sucking, until the last few minutes when it decides to cram in a movie's worth of plot in a clumsy expository exchange. If you thought the explanation at the end of Psycho was jarring, this might give you some perspective.

I will say that Wishman's pornos are DEFINITELY better than Steckler's pornos.

Now I just need to log 8 more Doris Wishman movies and she can become my most watched director this year...

The algorithms just recommended Mondo Macobro's upcoming Blu-ray release of Jess Franco's The Other Side of the Mirror.


I'm... intrigued.
I may have pre-ordered it.
Larraz is my most watched director so far this year, but I haven't watched a lot of movies this year. Still have Symptoms to watch.


September and October are shaping up to be some interesting months of movie watching.

Yeah, this is a movie with some degree of historic hype that, when I saw it, I actually said to myself, "Wow, this film is actually under-rated." I thought it was a virtually flawless film and should be on the tip of every cinephiles' tongue.

So, again, we come to a movie I saw much younger than I probably should have but helped to shape a lot of my cinematic world-view. Yes, this movie helped to shape my cinematic worldview. I would have been literally twelve years old when I saw this movie and I saw it a lot.
I think it really was pretty extreme at the time, though on a recent re-watch, obviously it was much tamer by comparison to many films since. But the initial torture sequence alone, when you're twelve and it's 1985 (HBO run), was so shocking to me, yet exciting (not the torture itself, obviously, but this level of extremity) and it really codified the idea to me that I liked being shocked. And this is right around the time that I was seeing Videodrome and Ms.45 and Driller Killer and a few other intense films, not to mention all the 80s exploitationy kinda stuff like The Exterminator, Vice Squad, Class of 1984, Death Wish 2, and the somewhat sillier Savage Streets. Given that I grew up in a safe First World suburb, it changes the way you see the world when you are exposed to the idea that this kind of extremity exists in the world (even in the fantasy of Videodrome a lot of the extreme S&M stuff is very real).
Like you say, the fact that Bronson's character is given so much more humanity here than he might have been helps the movie feel less like grindhouse exploitation and more like a legitimate narrative that's worth telling (within the action/thriller genre, of course).
But it's also the Doctor that really helped. He's such an unremarkable person beyond his utter lack of morality. There is no mustache-twirling, no evil laugh, no cool costume flair, he's just a man who can and will do things others won't not only without compunction but with a clinical detachment. That first torture scene where he explains like a lecturer in medical school how and why one must torture a man and a woman differently as it relates to the deconstruction of their sense of personal agency is so damn chilling, it stuck with me for 35 years in between viewings. So much so that when I finally re-watched the film I was startled how exactly like my memory that scene was. (Normally I remember films I see repeatedly almost exactly for about 20 years but then it starts to get mixed up; in this case that scene played exactly as it had in my mind for 35 years.)
So, anyway, it's a movie that seems better than it should be, even if, at the end of the day, it's just a violent, exploitative torture-revenge picture.

I haven’t really started planning for October just yet, but I did buy a bunch of Jean Rollin Blu-rays that I haven’t cracked open just yet, as well as a few box sets (the Severin folk horror set, the Camille Keaton and regional horror sets from VS), so I suppose that should keep me pretty busy, along with whatever pops up on my services, the odd rewatch and of course a few horror-tinged pornos to maintain my personal brand.

I’m glad you brought up that scene because I think its relatively sober handling helps the movie play as grimy without being excessively exploitative. It reminded me of the torture demonstration scene from Costa Gavras’ State of Siege, which is pretty impressive for a Charles Bronson action movie

KINKY!!!
I'm pretty sure you're overselling, but I still wanna buy it.

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San Franciscan lesbian dwarves and their tomato orgies.

It’s on Tubi if you want to take a look.

I mean, you’ve probably seen worse in terms of what’s actually depicted, but I think the banal presentation makes this extra unpleasant to sit through, and the fact that there isn’t much to alleviate said unpleasantness. If the movie were either more stylish or looked like it crawled out from under a rock, the content might not feel as noxious. This thing looks almost like a TV movie, and played multiplexes.