Thursday, August 31, 2023

Viewings: August 2023

Feel like I struck out this month as it’s mostly been a dour lot; the only notable film discovery was François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black.


Film:

Anatomy of a Psycho (Boris Petroff, 1961)*

For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965)

The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism AKA The Blood Demon (Harald Reinl, 1967)

The Bride Wore Black (François Truffaut, 1968)*

Something Evil (Steven Spielberg, 1972)*

Kidnap Syndicate (Fernando Di Leo, 1975)*

Cat Murkil and the Silks AKA Cruisin’ High (John A. Bushelman, 1976)*

Blue Sunshine (Jeff Lieberman, 1977)

Arrebato AKA Rapture (Iván Zulueta, 1979)*

Tourist Trap (David Schmoeller, 1979)

Harlequin (Simon Wincer, 1980)

The Deadly Camp (Bowie Lau, 1999)*

Erotic Nightmare (Wai-Man Cheng, 1999)*


Television:

The Avengers (random episodes) (Sydney Newman, 1961 - 1969)* 

"New" Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season 1, Episodes 0 - 4 (Christopher Crowe, Jon Slan & Michael Sloan, 1985)

Mastermind (random repeats) 

The Chase (random repeats)

 

* First time viewings.

 

Dada Debaser Notes:

  • Blaming the Handover of Hong Kong on the decline of quality Cat. III films as the ones I watched this month were poor. There's a fine art to making exploitation, and The Deadly Camp and Erotic Nightmare lack any creatively OTT finesse.
  • Arrebato isn’t the lost seventies masterpiece revisionist hipsters make it out to be. It’s an incoherent and boring mess themed around drugs and film making with a predictable climax.
  • Although it’s a bit of a dud, Spielberg’s TV movie has some distinguishable elements that are later reused and improved in Poltergeist (1982); adding more credibility to the rumour he might have ghost directed it.
  • Kidnap Syndicate was decent, but a real chore to sit through at times. Would have been more enjoyable without all the heavy-handed social commentary on classism weighing it down.
  • Expected Anatomy of a Psycho to be another maniac film capitalising off the success of Psycho (1960). The reality is it's a dull juvenile deliquent movie.
  • Revisiting Blue Sunshine and I've come to the conclusion it's basically a David Cronenberg film helmed by Larry Cohen instead. 
  • Adding the Silks from Cat Murkil and the Silks in the same league as the Hi-Hats from The Warriors (1979) and the boat punters in Baby Love (1969) as lamest looking gang in a film. Surprisingly dark and twisted in places. Bloke who played Cat Murkil also briefly appeared in the intro to Halloween (1978) as Judith Myers's boyfriend
  • While Christopher Lee might have top billing and is hardly in it, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism is a gorgeous gothic euro horror. Because of this, I can't believe it's a German production and not an Italian or Spanish one. Also, Karin Dor is unrecognisable in it as a raven-haired brunette. Looked totally different when she played the S.P.E.C.T.R.E woman fed to the piranhas.

Other media related stuff I enjoyed while avoiding the Womens' World Cup: The Martorialist's songs that bring him joy; both volumes in Rob Hill's Alien knock-off films video essay; and the Emlyn Hughes of film criticism having a go at another movie I really like.

10 comments:

  1. What channels are The Avengers and the Hitchcock show on?

    Having watched a buncha England bird's team games since the Euro's final they won, I've gotta admit that they play far more exciting football than the bloke's team. But that's damning with faint praise and of course they'd end up bottling it in a World Cup final. It's NEVER coming home.

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  2. Watched The Avengers episodes on the Freeview TV channel London Live, while the "new" Alfred Hitchcock Presents... was on YouTube.

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  3. Cheers.

    You know The Chase is one of the best modern quizzes when it can survive Bradley Walsh's muggy chumminess.

    Movies:
    The Intruder
    Hell Drivers
    Enter The Dragon (cinema)
    Serpico (cinema)
    Tape

    TV:
    Rab C. Nesbitt (series 3 + 4)
    What We Do In The Shadows (new episodes)
    Only Connect (new episodes)
    Match Of The Day 1 and 2
    8 Bar: Evolution Of Grime (documentary)

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  4. The Intruder wouldn't happen to be the William Shatner film, would it? I remember Ra the Rugged Man going on about how offensive it was back in the day. Found it fairly tame and less exploitive than he made it out to be.

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  5. It was. I liked it but had no idea about it going in other than it starring Shatner.

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  6. The Shatner movie I want to check out is Impulse (1974).

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  7. Looks good. He makes such a great smarmy villain in the 2 Columbo stories he's in 😄

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  8. Alway end up missing all the Columbo episodes during the weekends.

    One for the pub quiz: Did you know there was a spin-off detective series with his mythical wife, played by Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Enterprise? Only lasted two seasons.

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  9. I didn't 🤯

    I always liked the theory that his wife didn't actually exist. Then I saw the cruiseship episode during lockdown 1 where all the ship's staff were saying "you just missed your wife, Mr. Columbo."

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  10. There was one episode where the killer thought she had murdered Columbo's wife and he played along with it.

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