The Beast With 5 Fingers

Now here’s one that you may or may not have seen. THE BEAST WITH 5 FINGERS is a typical late ‘40s, let’s play the audience horror movie that only has one good thing to recommend it; and that is Peter Lorre.

The story concerns a crippled pianist, played by Victor Francen, living in an Italian village who dies and leaves his estate to his caretaker nurse, played by Andrea King. The locals in the town believe that evil has taken over the villa after several murders are committed and it is believed that the severed hand from the pianist’s corpse the grandfather of Thing in the Addams family) is responsible for the deaths. The story now turns in to a supernatural who-done-it with an array of possible suspects including, the nurse (King), the nurse’s fiancé (Robert Alda), the only two blood relatives of the deceased, the secretary of the pianist (Peter Lorre), and of course, the hand. Rounding out the cast is the inevitable police Commissario (J. Carrol Naish), who must try to make sense out of all this in the Miss Marple/Poirot style and is pretty good in the support role.

The movie starts out poorly acted and is very slow for at least the first half of the film. Alda provides one of the most boring performances I’ve ever seen with a total lack of emotion. The film shows its low budget, poor script writing and lack of scene continuity and scene jumping that I found irritating to say the least.

What makes this movie (fill in your own words here … good, almost good, great, tolerable, etc) is the performance by Peter Lorre when he faces the “beast”. It is a masterful performance, the stuff that Peter Lorre is known for. It's too bad it's only about 15 minutes of the film. I won’t go into details, because I don’t want to spoil the story if you haven’t seen it. Unfortunately, to get to this performance, you have to go through the “not so good” parts of the movie, because the story line and set-up for his performance are necessary. There are some good special effects in the film, also. I say “good” meaning for 1946. The performance of Victor Francen should also be noted. His portrayal of a formally famed, now paralyzed pianist with his anger and obsessions is well done and makes the film work (if you think the film works); and this performance sets up the believability of the "beast".

So again, this is worth seeing if you want to see a small portion of “Peter Lorre 101”, or just have some fun around the tube watching some nonsense vintage ‘40’s horror flick. I just gotta hand it to them, I rate it a 7 out of 10.

Footsteps In The Dark

I promised I’d start reviewing some old and classic films. Here is my first shot at it. For my first review of an oldies flick, I was going to do one of the dozens of great, campy SciFi B-movies from the ‘50s. But, I suddenly got the urge to do this seldom seen oldie instead.


FOOTSTEPS IN THE DARK (1941) is a classy comedy/mystery movie starring Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshal, Ralph Bellamy and Alan Hale. This movie is an out of the norm role for Flynn who we are all used to seeing as the swashbuckling hero in such classics as ROBIN HOOD, THE DAWN PATROL, THE SEA HAWK, and on and on. In this one, Flynn plays a high society executive, who has a secret hobby of writing murder mysteries and hanging out with the police attempting to solve cases. To do his investigations, he finds reasons so stay out late at night and sneaks in though the window while his wife (Brenda Marshal) is asleep, then lying about the time he came home. All at once, his book becomes popular, he gets involved in a murder case and his wife gets suspicious. You can guess the fun that follows.

The story is fun, has a good who-done-it to solve and the secondary plot line of how Flynn tries going to stay out of trouble keeps the interest up. It’s all great fun and Flynn does a surprisingly good job in the roll without swords and guns to back him up. Besides, it looks like he’s really having fun.

Alan Hale as the police chief adds to the spice. I just don’t think of a good Errol Flynn film without Alan Hale being in it; well, not many, anyway. (Yes, I'm a Alan Hale fan) All in all, this is a good 96 minutes of entertainment. I caught it on TCM (Turner Classic Movies). It’s also available to buy; or come over and watch it at my house!

I was toying with whether or not I should rate these, but since it's "my opinion" here (as the disclaimers states), why not. I give this a 7 out of 10.

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

OK, I finally went to a new movie. There was quite a bit to choose from, but after the process of eliminating seeing this one because I don't like who is in it, and that one because it doesn't sound like it's worth spending the money on, and that one because it's to violent or too much bad language, I decided on seeing THE WATER HORSE: LEGEND OF THE DEEP. Good choice, Wes.


First let me say that the movie should just be titled THE WATER HORSE and leave it at that. These sub-titled extensions tend to be misleading and can turn one off to going to see the movie. In this case, it adds nothing to the story ... it actually left me wondering why they put it there. If you find out, let me know. LEGEND OF THE DEEP - phooey!!

Now to the story. I'll tell you up front I thought this film was very good. It had a good plot, good characters and good special effects. There wasn't any bad language (how nice is that!) and it's not too scary for small kids.

The story centers around an old man in present times telling a couple of tourists a story about the now famous fake picture of the Lock Ness Monster. The story goes back to 1942 Scotland and the situation there during WWII. Our hero, Angus MacMorrow (played by Alex Etel) is a young boy of about 12 or 13, living near the lake in northern Scotland with his mother and the hired help. They are rather well off, since they own a small estate (I assume they own it). Angus has a great fear of water and loves and misses his father dearly, who has been away in the Royal Navy for over a year.

Angus discovers a large strange "rock" by the lake and brings it home. Needless to say it hatches and our story begins. Angus calls it "Crusoe" after Robinson Crusoe, a book in his father's workshop. I don't feel that I'm spoiling anything here since this all happens very early in the story. But, at the same time Angus starts his "adventure", two things happen that change everyone's life. First, the Army sends an artillery company to bivouac on the estate to establish anti-submarine defenses around the Lock (which leads to the open sea), and a new hire, Lewis Mowbray (played by Ben Chaplin)is hired as a new handyman and moves into Angus's father's workshop which was Angus's sanctuary and where he is keeping his new "pet'. This is all traumatic to Angus who has to hide the "pet" from his mother, who refuses to let him have any kind of pet, and solicits the aid of his sister and later Lewis, to keep the secret.

I won't go into more plot details. I'll let you learn them for yourself. Suffice it to say there are adult situations and inferences that are done so well, that the adults watching have a good adult story and the kids will have their story unburdened with adult stuff. There are a lot of laughs and a lot of tense moments. A well written story.

I found this movie very entertaining with something for everyone, the kids, the adults, the criers and the laughers. The story was well written and well acted. The actors are not well know actors and, for this guy at least, made it all that more enjoyable and believable. I have to throw in one warning, though. Everyone talks with a Scottish brogue, so be prepared!

I have to throw in a special well done for the photography. The shots were stunning of the Lock and the mountains of the area (even though it was shot in New Zealand). I know it's early to say anything, but this deserves an award for it's beautiful photography.

The special effects were good, but once Crusoe grows up, the CGI looks too much like CGI as opposed to the scenes when it was a small thing where it was a lot better in appearance.

After all is said, I feel this deserves a 8 out of 10 from this humble reviewer.

Apologies

Sorry I've been away and not keeping up with this. But, for those who know me, it's been a very busy fall. Besides that I haven't seen many movies. I promise to be more attentive in the future. I'm not going to limit this sit to just new movies, but I'll start reviewing oldies and classics and even some B SciFi stuff from the 50's. So keep tuned.

Wild Hogs

A good description of this might be Brando’s “The Wild One” meets The Three Stooges during mid-life crisis. This story is about four suburban middle-aged middle class bikers, who call themselves the “Wild Hogs”, deciding to get away from it all and take a road trip from Cincinnati to the Pacific. Taking their bikes, the "Wild Hogs", Doug (Tim Allen), Woody (John Travolta), Bobby (Martin Lawrence) and Dudley (William H. Macy), putz up the road and eventually stop in New Mexico for a drink in a biker bar that belongs to the "Del Fuegos", a mean biker gang like the kind that give mean biker gangs that kind of reputation (a nice way of saying stereotyped). The leader of the gang, Jack (Ray Liotta), steals Dudley’s bike. Woody takes matters into his own hands and steals it back which starts a predictable chain of events.
Even though the plot is predictable, there are still a lot of fun parts to make this a pretty good flick, probably more so for bikers who see a lot more of the humor in these characters than non-bikers. My only complaint is that I feel that John Travolta was strained in this roll and seemed to be over-acting to me, while the others seemed to be taking it all in stride. There was also a lot of use of the “s” word (why they do this is beyond me. It adds nothing to the story at all, especially in a Disney film), but other than that there wasn’t anything offensive in it. I especially liked the scenes during the end credits. This is a no-surprises comedy that I rate as 7 out of 10.

The Farmer Astronaut

This is a story about dreams and fulfilling them. Charles Farmer is a former Air Force astronaut wannabe, astrophysicist and engineer (not stated, but implied by his talents), who left the Air Force in order to save the family ranch after his father’s death. But, his dream of going into space has never died to the point of obsession. He lives and breaths outer space. He has indoctrinated his entire family into his dream and they are all part of it. He has even built a real rocket, based on an Atlas rocket and built out of spares and scrap, in his barn, that he intends to use to shoot himself into space. The locals in the town all laugh behind his back. They just think he is a bit of a kook and don’t really take him seriously. The down side to all of this is that he has gone into debt, big time, and has not told anyone (his wife especially) about it, and they are about to foreclose on the family ranch. On top of that, government has been made aware of his rocket when he inquired about the large quantity of fuel he wanted to purchase for his launch, and in this post 9/11 world they have put the FBI to watch his every move, and the FAA tries to slow roll him so that the bank can foreclose before his launch date. Charlie feels his dream slipping away and throws caution to the wind and decides to launch using a less than perfect fuel source.

Like I said, this is a movie about dreams. It is a good family movie with nothing offensive in it at all. The performances are good with Billy Bob Thornton as our dreamer, Virginia Madsen as his “too good to believe in supporting all this” wife, a small part by Bruce Dern (he’s getting old) and an uncredited roll by Bruce Willis. The problems I had with it are it is a bit slow moving. Some people like this pace, but I needed it to move a bit faster. There were also numerous flaws, both technical and non-technical that tended to bother me, but it is still a good story with some life implications thrown in. All things considered, I give it a 7 out of 10 rating.

Shooter

It was another rental weekend. I wouldn't have rented this one except it came with a recommendation, so I gave it a try.



Shooter is another "one man hero against the system" story in the Rambo vain. Our hero, Bob Lee Swagger, played by Mark Wahlberg (what is this obsession on three word names?) is an ex-marine sniper, and obviously, the best in the business (gee, I'm surprised). The story opens with our hero and his observer showing there stuff in an operation in Ethiopia, where his observer gets killed and he is abandoned by the "good guys". Next scene is 3 years later at his mountain home living with his beer fetching dawg, now retired Swagger is approached by retired Col. Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) and his troop who convince Swagger that there will be an attempt on the life of the president by a sniper a a one mile range and only he can help them stop this before it happens. I mean, come on guys, this has fall guy written all over it! But, for the sake of a story, our hero falls for it and agrees to help.

Of course it is a set-up; of course they try to kill our hero; of course he gets wounded; of course he gets away; and of course our hero wants to uncover the plot and seek revenge. Standard plot mechanics, nothing new or original here. And because of his "super-hero" abilities, you know he will succeed showing off all his skills and waving the American flag all the way. If that's what you are looking for in this movie, you won't be disappointed, because that's what it is. A few original plot twists in the end and a lot of stupid moves on the part of our hero leaving you asking at the end of the movie "Why would he do that?", and then you realize that it is the excuse to have the action scenes, because if he "did the right things" (knowing what our hero knows all along, but they don't let us know until the end) there wouldn't be a story. So much for super-heroes.



On the positive side, Mark Wahlberg puts in a good performance and plays our hero straight and true. There is a decent supporting cast except I find Danny Glover unbelievable in his roll of a top guy, it just doesn't come off for me. I did like the small part veteran actor Ned Beatty played as Senator Meachum. He played the true arrogance of a man in his position.

So, if you want to see a Rambo style action film, this is it. If you want to see a plot twister that makes you think, you'd probably do better elsewhere. This movie is rated R. It has a bit of bad language, no sex other than Kate Mara in her underwear, no romance (other than maybe implied), and some blood, mostly due to the long range "head shots" that the sniper makes (this is the way they tell the audience that it's a kill). I was also disturbed by the sound quality. I had a lot of trouble understanding what was being said in a lot of instances and had to turn on the subtitles, but that might just be my audio setup. I give this movie a 7 out of 10.