Tag Archives: mystery

#281- Deliverance

Quick recap: 4 men go on a canoe trip and end up being hunted by hillbillies.

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Fun (?) fact: According to IMDb, more than 30 people drowned in the Chattooga River after the movie came out because they were trying to recreate different scenes.

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My thoughts: Bonus fun fact- I still have the ‘Dueling Banjos’ melody in my head. It’s better than my usual mashup of the Ducktales theme song/Mentos commercial, but I’d still like to move on from it. So. Deliverance. This movie is in the category of Movies People Unnecessarily Warn Me About, like The Exorcist. Yes, there were disturbing scenes, but it was no more or less disturbing than other movies I have watched on this list.

Before I spew my actual thoughts about the film, I have a confession to make. Saturday Night Live’s Celebrity Jeopardy is one of my favorite things ( like most people, I assume), but I never really understood the Burt Reynolds impersonation until this movie. I haven’t seen many of his films but after watching Deliverance, I realize that I don’t need to in order to understand who he is. And, tangentially, what was up with that vest Reynolds wore? What was it made of? It seems like the kind of clothing that would chafe you until you were driven insane, but this is Burt Reynolds we are talking about, so maybe he was in his element.

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You could stand to show a little more chest hair, Mr. Reynolds

So. Deliverance. It didn’t do much for me, although I can appreciate turning something so common, like a river, into something so sinister. I guess I’m meh about the whole thing because I was expecting more disturbing scenes than I got. Literally the only thing I knew about this movie was the rape scene, and although it was rough, it didn’t bother me like the one in Man Bites Dog did. Maybe because it’s a man, more people are shocked? On the other hand, this movie did not make me want to go jump into a canoe anytime soon. I’m not really a fan of being in the water anyway, but watching Deliverance made me all the more weary to go camping or some other similar adventure.

Final review: 2/5. I think my ambivalence comes from my dislike of most of the characters. Burt Reynolds was never supposed to be likeable, but I didn’t really care what happened to any of them.

Up next: Horrorfest marches on

 

 

 

 

 

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#268- The 39 Steps

Quick recap: A man goes on the run after a woman is found dead in his apartment. However, the woman was actually a spy so not only does the man have to hide from the law, he is also tasked with taking down a bunch of villain spies out to steal information.

Fun (?) fact: The sheep that were brought in for one of the scenes ate up the plants and bushes and the crew had to keep replacing them. Sheep are going to do what sheep do.

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Surprisingly, no one said ‘by jove!’ in this movie.

My thoughts: Seeing as this is my 6th Hitchcock film, I now feel qualified to have an opinion of him as a director. And so far, I think I like him best when he isn’t doing horror. It’s almost comforting to watch his films, knowing that even when this movie was made in 1935, Hitchcock had his trademarks set up: a man falsely accused, a MacGuffin, a director cameo, stairs. It’s all there. At the same time, each film is wildly different from the rest and seeing as this one was all about spies, I was fascinated even more than I normally am.

The character Hanney, the man on the run from the law, is one of my favorite elements of the film. When the movie opens, he’s just a regular guy, maybe hoping to get some action from this random woman who enters his life. But when she’s murdered by an evil spy ring, he gets thrust into the spy life. Throughout the movie, he never really does anything like a stereotypical spy and yet he has enough wits about him to stay one step ahead. In doing so, it made me root for him and want him to solve the mystery before the bad guys got to him first. It also surprised me how much I liked the character Pamela, who ended up handcuffed to Hanney, despite having no previous involvement with either side. She wasn’t just a dumb blonde and made her own decisions, thank you very much.

Seeing as how this movie was made over 80 years ago, I don’t really feel like I’m spoiling it to say that the secrets The 39 Steps were trying to smuggle out of the country were housed in a man called Mr Memory. It was a huge surprise to me when this was revealed, but I also kind of felt bad because his act was a super lame party trick. His schtick was basically that he knew a ton of facts and the audience could shout out obscure questions for him to answer. I mean, considering there was no Wikipedia back then, I guess it’s cool, except how does anyone know if he’s telling the truth? Except if you already know the answer to the question you asked and then in that case, you are just as lame as this guy. Anyway. Just as Hanney figures out he is the key to the whole thing, Memory is shot, but not before divulging his secret to Pamela and him. As he takes his dying breath, Hanney and Pamela hold hands and it was a beautiful ending to actually a really good movie.

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Final review: 4/5

Up next: Happiness

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#267- Shock Corridor

Quick recap: A journalist pretends to be insane so that he can solve the murder of a patient in a psychiatric ward.

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You mean there really is a Bart? Good Lord!!

 

Fun (?) fact: Because he had a small budget, director Samuel Fuller hired little people to hang out in the background of the hall to produce a greater sense of depth for the audience.

My thoughts: Before Shock Corridor, someone could’ve presented me with a movie about being in a mental institution and I would be all over it. So many directions to go! So many points to make! So many complex yet endearing characters! But now I know better, thanks to this movie. See, this is why we can’t have nice things.

The film starts with Johnny Barrett rehearsing his story to a psychiatrist to ensure that the police take him seriously and lock him up in this place. Before I go any further, I want you to imagine what story you would come up with in that situation, knowing that you would be subjected to any kind of technique to cure you and this would most likely stay on your criminal record. What did Barrett and his boss come up with? Incest, of course! And not just incest, because apparently that isn’t crazy enough. Let’s add in a hair fetish! It’s one thing to want to go full into the role and all, but that’s taking it a little too far, I think. Oh, and to make it extra creepy, they added in Barrett’s girlfriend to play the sister. I’ll let you in on how that turned out later on. Hint: not well.

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But, you might be saying, Barrett was trying to solve a murder! He had to concoct a crazy story to make sure he got in and stayed in. I suppose that’s true, although we as the audience never meet who was murdered or see the murderer or get any hint that there is still a threat. Granted, the mental institution does some crazy stuff, but wasn’t that par for the course in the 50s and 60s? By the time the murderer is revealed, I realized that I had never been invested to being with.

So, what to take from this movie? Is it that the insane deserve a voice and a sympathetic ear? No, because the characters themselves are about as stereotypically insane as you can get: A man who sings opera in the middle of the night, a guy who things he is a general in the Civil War and my personal favorite, the black guy whose racist against black guys. Each person shows flashes of sanity at some point, but then retreat back into their world and are of little help in solving the murder. And what does Barrett gain from all of this? He goes insane, too! Turns out, it might not have been the best idea to turn your girlfriend into your sister, buddy. After getting electroshock therapy and intensive counseling sessions to cure him of wanting to molest his sister, Barrett wants nothing to do with his girlfriend.

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There’s a nympho ward!

Final review: 2/5

Up next: The 39 Steps

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#256- Blow-Up

Quick recap: A photographer believes he has witnessed a murder as evidenced by close ups of photos he recently shot.

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Watching Blow-Up gave me a newfound appreciation for Austin Powers

Fun (?) fact: Blow-Up features a performance by the Yardbirds, back when both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck were still in the band.

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The movie also basically brought about the end of the Production Code. The rating system was installed a couple of years later.

My thoughts: As noted above, Blow-Up was a huge influence on the Austin Powers movies, which I always thought just parodied James Bond. And Coppola’s The Conversation, one of my favorites,also plays homage to this film. On paper, Blow-Up has everything I could ever want in a movie, yet I just didn’t care for it very much.

Although it wasn’t my cup of tea, Blow-Up is a beautiful, complicated film and one that I think people should try out. Each scene felt like its own set of photographs pieced together, from the antique shop to the analysis of the pictures to the party. Everything was woven together beautifully and it added to the mystery of whether or not Thomas witnessed a murder. Thomas himself I didn’t care for, but I don’t think I was meant to. It makes more sense for him to be a pretentious artist whose work is so important that it solves murders. I won’t give away what I think about the reality of the body, but one of my favorite quotes from the film says it all:

‘They don’t mean anything when I do them…just a mess. afterwards I find something to hang on to…like that leg. Then it sorts itself out and adds up. It’s like finding a clue in a detective story.’

I can’t put a finger on why the film didn’t do much for me, which is frustrating. It might be because it is slow moving or maybe because there is no resolution, sort of like Two-Lane Blacktop. Or it could just be because I hate mimes. At any rate, if I watched it again with an audience, maybe in a theater, I might have a different opinion.

Final review: 3/5, although it really is an essential film to watch

Up next: She’s Gotta Have It

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