Checked out the latest episodes of the James Bond Cocktail Hour?

The third season of the James Bond Cocktail Hour is out now. 

Follow the podcast on IG @jbchpod and on Twitter @jbchpod007.

The episodes are as follows:

No Time To Die Trailer 2 review 

Nobody Lives For Ever (by John Gardner)

How to introduce James Bond

Casino Royale '06 Part One & Two

McClory v Fleming

Thunderball (novel)

Remembering Sean Connery

Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965)

A look at Kevin McClory's Warhead (1976)

Never Say Never Again (Irvin Kershner, 1983)

Remixing Thunderball

Our first reviews of 2021 are below.

The Hunt for Red October: This review was the result of a poll on IG to pick a movie to review one of Sean Connery's non-Bond filmography. Look out for more Jack Ryan reviews in the future! 

The Man with the Golden Gun: We review Roger Moore's second turn as James Bond. 

You can listen to these and future episodes wherever you listen to podcasts!

Starter for 10 (Tom Vaughn, 2006)

Brian Jackson (James McAvoy) is a first-year student at Bristol University in 1985. Obsessed with the TV show University Challenge, he joins the university's quiz team in hopes that he can finally achieve his dream of appearing on the show.

While Brian may have the knowledge to hold his own on the quiz team, he is a bit lost on campus. While he pines for Alice (Alice Eve), his teammate, he ignores his friends back home and the world-weary Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), a fellow student who becomes Brian's reluctant fount of wisdom.

Will Brian get onto University Challenge? Or will he learn how to grow up?

This review will contain some spoilers.

This movie is special. I remember reading Empire magazine's review when it came out, and I watched it at some point the following year.

Starter for 10 came out just before I started university, and I really plugged into Brian's headspace through the story - going to a new place, meeting new people; learning new things...

I have not watched the movie in a long time, and I had kinda forgotten about it until I watched The Gift. I remembered Rebecca Hall was in it, and I went back to have a re-watch. 

One reason I am surprised the movie does not come up more is the cast: James McAvoy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dominic Cooper, James Corden. Even the actor who played Tarkin in Rogue One, Guy Henry, is in it!

Some movies I liked from that time have not aged well but Starter for 10 still works. I am surprised that this movie does not pop up more as a cult classic.

The script is really solid, with well-drawn characters and an empathy for their faults. 

Alice Eve's character could have been the familiar hot girl who our hero falls for, but the way she is written, and the way Eve plays her, feels more real. She is self-absorbed and a little manipulative, but she is nice. Niceness is a fairly easy and superficial quality to have, and that element of her character is part of the reason the movie works: she is self-obsessed rather than an antagonist, but so is Brian. Ultimately she just has different priorities to our protagonist. He is experiencing an intense crush, which has papered over the differences between them.

In some ways, Starter for 10 reminded me of Edge of Seventeen. Like the central character in that movie, Brian makes a series of mistakes, culminating in one error that he then has to deal with for the rest of the movie.

That final dip is the reason I love this movie - ultimately it is about the importance of failure in learning to grow up. It takes Brian a long time to recognise and break away from his infatuation with Alice.

I also like that he fails at his goal to win University Challenge. 

Starter for 10 is not afraid to go dark. I think that is why the 80s setting is also important. Brian is shielded from the world, and he is forced to confront the realities of Thatcher's Britain on a personal level, with his friend Spencer (Cooper).

McAvoy is an underrated actor. The success of the X-Men movies have given a false impression that he is      a familiar name, but I think he is more versatile and singular than those movies allow him to show. Brian Jackson is not a bad person. He is just young and has the singular vision and self-absorption that comes with it. McAvoy leans into Jackson's sincerity, 

In a role that could be a cliche (the 'smart friend who turns into the protagonists real romantic partner), Rebecca Hall is sparky, funny and seems to be completely aware of how nonsensical Brian is. This character could have been an obvious plot device (like Elisabeth Reaser in Liberal Arts), but Rebecca (the character - why do the main female characters share the same names as the actresses?) is so well-fleshed out and the way their relationship builds feels so natural that their final coming together feels earned.

Starter for 10 is a terrific romantic comedy and I hope the reputation of its cast brings it back onto the broader public's radar. It is a better Christmas movie than Love Actually!

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Liberal Arts (Josh Radnor, 2012)

Jesse (Josh Radnor) is 35 and works in university admissions in New York City. He is in a funk and detached from his life.

When his favourite university professor (Richard Jenkins) invites him to speak at his retirement ceremony,  he leaps at the chance to escape his current inertia. 

Being back in the familiar surroundings of the university campus, Jesse is reminded of what life used to be like. 

When a 19-year-old student, Zibby (Elisabeth Olsen), takes an interest in him, Jesse sees an opportunity to recaptures some of his lost youth.

Liberal Arts is not the worst movie I have ever seen, but it has an impression of what it thinks it is that exceeds itself.

I caught this at the film festival in 2012. I remember kind of liking it, but it had not stuck in the brain until I happened on it while trawling though the internet.

It was a weird experience because I hooked into one aspect of it, while being repulsed with other parts of it.

I enjoyed the Ohio locations, and I did connect with some of the main character's recollections of how much he enjoyed his time there. 

But then there is the rest of the movie.

Repulsed might be a strong word but there is something so smug about this movie that really put me off.

My big problem with the movie is how unoriginal and forced the whole enterprise is. I could not stop feeling like I was watching something that had been written. Every character's journey felt so predictable, and their dialogue was heavy with such obvious meaning that I started to get annoyed at the movie's sense of its own significance. 

Even the movie's attempt at humour come off as hack: Zac Efron plays a magical bro who offers Jesse advice - he is not particularly funny, but the movie seems to think he is hilarious, probably because the role is played by Zac Efron. With the distance of almost a decade, and the trajectory of Efron's career, that joke has worn very thin. 

When our lovebirds start exchanging handwritten letters, I started staring past the screen into the distance. Their conversations are so superficial - there is a certain pretension to discussing life through opera, but their writing voices take it over into pseudo-intellectual BS.

Jesse writes like a bad harlequin novel, and Zibby’s dissections of opera read like someone pulled quotes from Wikipedia. 

There is a scene where our hero picks up a vampire novel Zibby has been reading and mocks her for it, and asks her what is it about. To have this character played by the writer-director criticise another work for lacking subtext seems rich.

To take the main characters’ line: what is this movie about?

Nothing. The character ends up learning the lesson you know he will, and he ends up with the nice lady his own age (Elizabeth Reaser) who shares his love of books (she works at a book store!).

In the lead role, Josh Radnor is fine. It does feel like he is playing an older, more jaded Ted Moseby, but I feel like Ted had more pathos and humour than Jesse. I put it down to the script which never finds a way to flesh him out and make him feel like a real person - he always comes across as 'guy in his thirties learns how to be cool with being in his thirties'.

Elisabeth Olsen is a great actress, but watching her in this it felt like she was trapped by the script's limited conception of her character. Olsen brings warmth and maturity to the role, but Zibby never feels real - she always feels like a reaction to the main character, rather than a unique personality.  

That is the problem with the movie: Zibby is an idea of youth, just like Jesse’s professor (Richard Jenkins) is a personification of his own fears of ageing and irrelevance. Everyone is an idea not a person. 

And in a movie that wants to be all about character, that is a big problem.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I Married A Monster From Outer Space (Gene Fowler Jr., 1958)

On the night before his nuptials, Bill Farrell (Tom Tryon) is kidnapped and replaced by an unknown entity.

Bill's wife Marge (Gloria Talbott) grows increasingly disturbed by her husband's changed persona. 

One night she follows him into the woods, where she witnesses him enter a spaceship.

Realising what is going on, Marge tries to find anyone who will believe her. But it seems like every man she knows and trusts is suddenly a stranger…

If my review reads like a list of surprises I think it is more to do with the title than the content of the film. I Married A Monster From Outer Space reads like a cheap genre picture or a parody of a cheap genre picture. The fact that the main character is a harried housewife named Marge also makes the title feel more ridiculous (it would be a good title for a Treehouse of Horror segment).

Before I go further, be advised there will be some spoilers.

A low budget programmer from 1958 (released on a double bill with The Blob), this is a more gendered spin on the alien doppelgänger theme popularised by Invasion of the Body Snatchers. On its face, this is an obvious Cold War allegory, but the movies’ focus on marriage points to a different reading.

The movie - intentional or not - feels like a scathing critique of fifties gender roles, and women’s lack of agency. Marge spends the movie trying to find help but she is disempowered at every turn, and slowly realised that not only can she no longer trust the men in her life, but that they have too much power over to begin with.

While the title leans hard toward exploitation, and the movie boasts some effective special effects, the genre-wise the movie looks and feels more like a noir or one of those female entrapment thrillers like Gaslight or Midnight Lace. 

Marge is constantly lied to and manipulated - what makes her predicament interesting is that her antagonist does not need to do anything to control her. Societal expectations, peer pressure and trust in patriarchal institutions like the police are enough to keep her trapped.

While this means that the movie is rather low-key, it does boast some effectively creepy moments.

I first heard about this movie through Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, where he described the wedding night scene. The wedding night scene is really effective - Tom Tryon is standing out in the balcony, smoking as a thunder storm rages. Every time lightning flashes, his skin becomes translucent and we see his real face underneath. It’s is a creepy image with some disturbing implications, considering the context.

Another effective sequence is a local woman who, after failing to find a companion at the bar, spots a figure in a trench coat staring into a shop window across the dark, empty street. She approaches and talks to the figure, who turns to reveal its gnarled visage.

As far as the Alien makeup and effects, I Married A Monster From Outer Space is not a bonanza, but the design elements are really well-handled. 

While the aliens are not hidden from view, I found it hard to figure out what their faces look like - they kind of resemble the Quarren from Star Wars, with vaguely tendril-like mouths. They are a little rubbery, but the impression I got was that the aliens were wearing organic space suits. One of the most fun effects are the shots of bullets making indents on the aliens' skins but never piercing them.

The effects of the creatures’ weapons and disintegrations are simple laser animations and dissolves, but they work. The matte effects used for the transformations are more original and polished, including a thick plume of smoke which is kind of unsettling.

While the movie is not flashy, the way it approaches certain elements of its story are surprising. One thing I really liked was the way the actors did not drastically alter their approach once they have been replaced. We only get a few scenes from their point of view but they come across as arrogant and dismissive of their flesh cells.

Overall, the acting is good - it is all of a piece with the understatement of the movie, although I wish the screenplay had been more adventurous in how one of those characters developed.

Tom Tryon brings a distance to the husband that is very effective - it is hard to tell what his real deal is, whether his sojourn in human flesh is starting to affect his conscience.

As the only human being in the movie, Gloria Talbott is warm and empathetic, however her role feels the most stuck in the fifties. My reading might be influenced by the archetype of the final girl, but in dramatic terms I found her actions in the latter half of the movie unsatisfying. She spends the whole movie putting her trust in men, who she slowly realises are all aliens, and ultimately the aliens are defeated because she stumbles into a man who believes her and is not an alien.

Marge does try some other tactics to escape - she tries to send a telegram to the outside world, but the telegraph operator shreds it after she leaves; she tries to drive out of town but is blocked by the local cops. However, even after Marge knows what is going on, she keeps talking to men until in the last 20 mins Marge finally talks to a real man who organises a posse to attack the ship. She is treated as an accessory even after the movie has bashed us over the head with how little control she has over her life.

The third act is underwhelming, however it actually makes the movie more interesting, in a skewed way.

In the end, the return of balance to Marge's life feels simultaneously cliche-ridden and weirdly appropriate as unintentional satire. The disquiet of Marge's predicament remains, despite the triumphalism of the ending - if the monsters come back, they will have no trouble re-inserting themselves into fifties Americana.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Godzilla (Roland Emmerich, 1998)

Created by the fallout from French nuclear testing in the Pacific, a massive lizard has carved a path of destruction across Central America and is heading toward New York for reasons unknown.

It falls to Nick Tatopolous (Matthew Broderick), a biologist, to figure out what is going on.

Will he save the city? Will he save the audience?

After the Harryhausen reviews, I was keen to check out more monster movies. Since Godzilla v Kong is coming out soon, and this movie was on Netflix, I used up two hours of my life on this.

I remember the run-up to the release of this movie. According to Tom Shone's book Blockbuster, it was a bigger deal than the movie, which makes sense. I did not watch Godzilla '98 in theatres - I caught it when it came out on video and I do not remember it keeping my attention. 

If someone asked me what the 90s felt like to me, the tone of this movie fits perfectly - that post-Cold War, Clintonian third way post-politics feels like a dream now, but you can get a strong whiff of what it felt like from the big blockbusters of the time - movies like Emmerich's epitomise the ridiculous sense of optimism and the fixation with apocalyptic imagery that defined the big box office hits of the late 90s. Part of it is genre (particularly the escalation of the post-Die Hard action movie) and the other is technical advances in visual effects. 

The disaster movies of the seventies reflected that era's growing sense of disenchantment after the end of the sixties, and the sense of national decline from events such as the oil crisis, the economic downturn and growing awareness of environmental devastation. The disaster movies of the nineties (Volcano, Twister, Deep Impact, Armageddon) feel more like a portent of incoming disaster - the disaster movies of the nineties feel more obsessed with upending this image of 'peace and prosperity' that defines the decade. There is a bit of armchair analysis to this but watching movies like Godzilla '98 really highlights how omnipresent these fantasies were. 

What is striking about Godzilla '98 is the tone. Post-9/11, it is impossible to think a movie could get away with the comic frivolity of Emmerich's film. When the lizard is offscreen, characters are far too cavalier and comedic - it is a familiar trope of Emmerich-Devlin joints, and it really detracts from any sense of dread.

A city is dealing with a massive disaster, yet everyone is acting like they are in a sitcom - the most obvious example is Harry Shearer, who is playing an odious newscaster who has the same voice as Kent Brockman from The Simpsons; his Simpsons co-star Hank Azaria is playing an Italian American stereotype who feels like he walked out of a MadTV sketch. 

The movie is also filled with in-jokes - the biggest one is that the Mayor is called Ebert and his assistant is named Gene. It is a lame dig at critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, who famously gave Independence Day a bad review on their TV show At The Movies.

The action scenes might as well be out of a comedy - Godzilla is the biggest thing in all creation, yet every time the military fire a missile at him, he ducks and dives through city streets with little issue. Considering how cynical the presentation this could be a critique of American militarism, but I doubt it -  this is a movie where we reintroduced to the main character driving past a sign post labeled 'Chernobyl' followed by a chyron IN THE NEXT SHOT stating that the action is taking place in Chernobyl.  

The movie is a horribly stereotypical example of lowest common denominator story-telling - the Japanese sailers are introduced eating noodles and watching sumo wrestling; Jean Reno complains about New York coffee and lack of croissants; Godzilla conveniently appears and disappears at will. Characters are stupid and smart on a scene-by-scene basis, and everyone has to talk like they're delivering one-liners for the trailer.

"We're gonna need bigger guns."

"Running would be a good idea."

This is spoken while the passenger is in a car being digested by Godzilla: "Wrong way man! Wrong way!" 

In a lamer in-joke, the Mayor's assistant Gene gives Mayor Ebert the thumbs down. Ugh.

The funniest thing about Godzilla '98 is how it feels like the inverse of the 2014 version of Godzilla - whereas that movie is relentlessly dour, this movie treats everything as a joke - there is even a soldier who speaks with a stutter because the filmmakers think it is funny (said stutter goes away when he starts ordering people to shoot at Godzilla).

What compounds the tonal problems is how uncommitted the lead performers are. In the lead role, Matthew Broderick seems disassociated from the other actors; his line-readings never change, even as the monster rages throughout the city. He is matched by Maria Pitillo as his love interest, Audrey - in the Madison Square Garden sequence, their collective lack of fear completely derails what little tension the scene could have. The one performer with any sense of gravitas of Jean Reno, and that might just be unintentional because Jean Reno is inherently charismatic. This movie highlights how important Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith are to the success of Independence Day - this movie has no performers to give it some heft. 

The disinterested performances feel like a commentary on the visual effects: While there are some impressive sets and practical effects, most of the visual spectacle in this movie is rendered via CGI - this is fine for the long shots, particularly during the many rainy night scenes, but most of the compositing is rough and the close-ups of Godzilla's eyes and face show their age. Godzilla '98 is a good example of over-using CGI - even the Japanese shipwreck is CG and looks like a cut scene out of a video game.

Roland Emmerich has never been a great filmmaker, but up to Independence Day, he showed some sense of dramatic sense when it came to building atmosphere and knew how to shoot his big effects practically. Once he began using computer-generated effects, what little skill he displayed went out the window.

This becomes really obvious in the set piece in Madison Square Garden - our heroes discover the Godzilla has created a massive nest for its offspring. When the baby Godzillas start hatching, I completely checked out. The scene is such a blatant rip off of Jurassic Park, but feels more like Jurassic World. The lizards are mostly CG and Emmerich shoots them in wides with too much light, which only reinforces how intangible they are - the scene would have been improved if Emmerich had been more specific in ripping off Jurassic Park, and used more practical creatures, with more use of chiaroscuro and use of offscreen space. 

The movie is over two hours long and by the time the nest is destroyed, it feels like the movie should be over - not because it is a satisfying resolution but because whatever dramatic gas the movie had has dispelled a LONG time ago. Instead of ending, we get the slasher cliche of the villain coming back from the dead - Godzilla rises from beneath the ruins for a final showdown.

After 90 minutes of wise-cracks, the death of the baby Godzillas is the one time the movie tries to aim for pathos. After Godzilla emerges from beneath the ruin of the Garden, it mourns the death of its offspring, and nudges at the corpses of its young with its nose. It is a complete unearned moment, and would have worked if Godzilla's design was capable of showing emotion but no. It is even worse at the climax when Godzilla lies dying and our heroes watch mournfully as its beady digital eyes close. You really miss the guy in the rubber suit in these moments.

It is weird that the film chooses to dwell on these sequences because we do not get any attempt of humanity from the people of New York - for an ostensible disaster movie, Godzilla '98 does not even boast the montages of people reacting to the lizard's destruction. There are a few moments early on but then the city is just an empty playground. Even Independence Day did a better job at this.

Comparing Godzilla '98 with Independence Day is a good case study for how the rise of CG in the late 90s affected filmmakers' styles. Independence Day is a bad movie, but there is a craftsmanship to some of the set piece moments that still pack punch - like Air Force One's escape from the alien's initial blast. There are no comparable moments like that in Godzilla '98.

What is so damning about this movie is summed up by a scene that never appeared in the movie. A year before the movie came out, Sony released a specially-shot teaser trailer to come in front of Men in Black. It is a pretty simple sequence - a group of kids check out a dinosaur exhibit during a thunder storm. As the tour progresses, the sound of booming footsteps grow louder and louder until a massive foot crashes through the ceiling and crushes a T-Rex skeleton (a clear dig aimed at that summer's The Lost World: Jurassic Park). We get the familiar roar and the tagline 'Guess who's coming to town'. This scene - which is not in the movie - manages to be more suspenseful and iconic than any scene in the movie it is teasing. 

How embarrassing. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Xenogensis (James Cameron, 1978)

 In the distant future, a cyborg, Raj (William Wisher) and a human woman, Laurie (Margaret Umbel), are on the hunt for a new home for humanity. Stumbling into a giant space craft, the pair are attacked by a giant metallic sentry.

Made by James Cameron as a calling card for Hollywood, Xenogenesis now reads like a statement of intent.

There are so many details, from themes to design elements to specific shots, that feel like Cameron's mood. board for his future films. 

Even the presence of William Wisher (co-writer of Terminator 2) as one of the lead characters feels like an unintentional in-joke. 

The film opens on a series of paintings (drawn by JC) while a narrator sets up the world of the film, and then we are introduced to Wisher's character exploring the empty corridors of a massive ship they have discovered.

The production design of the space ship reminded me of Disney's Black Hole (released a year later). Even though the image is really grainy, it is remarkable how impressive the setting looks. Long dark corridors stretch into the distance while Wisher tiptoes past a massive metallic abyss. While we only get a taste of it, the production design does feel like Cameron is taking some inspiration from the worn, used aesthetic popularised by Star Wars. I wish he had had an opportunity to expand Xenogenesis into a feature.

And then the robot sentry shows up: big, black, with mantis-like claws and metallic tank treads. It is like the unholy spawn of one of the Hunter-Killer tanks from Terminator and the Alien Queen from Aliens. 

AND THEN Wisher's colleague (Margaret Umbel) shows up operating a massive robot spider ala Ripley in Aliens and the two metallic titans get to punch-up just like You Know What (I feel a bit self-conscious pointing all these things out because they are really obvious influences on his later work).

The fight is pretty simple when you break it down, but the effects work is fantastic and Cameron frames and shoots the dueling with a sense of depth and perspective that makes it feel more epic and intense. 

It is so good, I was eager to see where the story went. It also made me want to revisit Cameron's films, which I have not done in years.

Xenogenesis does not boast much of a story, but as a showcase for Cameron's direction and technical skills, it is great. There is also something sad about watching this, and knowing that Cameron is currently working on four Avatar movies. He has made enough money to do whatever he wants, but I do wish he would be more prolific. This is more wish fulfilment but I do wonder what his films would have looked like if he had not had the benefit of ballooning budgets and improving technology. 

It is a curio, but if you are a fan of Cameron, or home-made move-making, Xenogenesis is worth a look.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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5 Against The House (Phil Karlson, 1955)

After visiting a Reno casino, four ex-GIs-turned-students, Al (Guy Madison), Ronnie (Kerwin Matthews), Roy (Alvy Moore) and Brick (Brian Keith)  come up with a scheme to rob it. Some want excitement, others think it’s bad idea. But one of the group, Brick (Brian Keith) is determined that they go through with it.

With Al's girlfriend, Kaye (Kim Novak) along for the ride, the group head into Reno to pull off the heist. Will they succeed?

I first heard about this movie from a reference Martin Scorsese made to it in some interview I cannot remember. After his recommendation of Murder by Contract, when this movie showed up online, I had to check it out. In a neat (bit intended) tie-in to my previous reviews, Kerwin Matthews, star of Ray Harryhausen's Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Three Worlds of Gulliver, plays the one of the five who actually plans the heist.

Centred around four Korean War veterans who link up at university, 5 Against The House is less interested in the mechanics of the heist than the dynamics between the friends, particularly the friendship between Al (Guy Madison) and Brick (Brian Keith).

The most involving element of the film is Keith's Brick. Unable to articulate the psychological trauma he has suffered, he is struggling to find purpose. When Ronnie comes up with the idea to bust the casino out of boredom, Brick is the most enthusiastic booster of the idea. It will be a chance to get the old rush back.

The movie does not get into detail about PTSD, but there is an empathetic portrayal of a soldier's inability to reconnect with society is moving and more specific than I expected.

Keith's simmering, inarticulate performance is heartbreaking, but with a rage and unpredictability that makes the character more ambiguous - it is easy to feel empathy for Brick, but Keith's portrayal always keeps you on edge.

The heist is enjoyable, but the tension comes from the growing distrust between our protagonists. What is really affecting about the film is the power of Al's love and belief in Brick. Even as Brick becomes more forceful, effectively taking his friends hostage at the point of a gun, Al is more determined to save his friend.

Kim Novak is effective as Al's girlfriend, but the film is so focused on homosocial relationships that her involvement comes off as an attempt to counter any implication of homosexuality among the four friends. The character also feels like a signifier of the divide between Al and Brick - while Brick is unable to form  relationships (romantic or otherwise) outside the foursome, Al is planning to marry Kaye. Kaye symbolises a future that Brick cannot dream of. While this works for Brick and Al's relationship, Kaye's role is designed in relation to them.

Watching the film with Scorsese in mind, I could see how he could be interested in this film - while a genre picture, it is mostly concerned with relationships between the main characters. There is something enjoyable about how long the movie spends setting up the four friends, their running jokes and petty squabbles.

When the heist finally comes into view, and the 'five' have fallen apart over whether to go through with it, 5 Against The House comes into its own. The mechanics of the heist are relatively simple but the film's focus on character development gives this final set piece a sense of tragedy as we watch the titular characters go through every step of the heist, caught between the watching eyes of casino security and Brick's hair trigger.

A fine picture, 5 Against the House is no. masterpiece but works as a character study folded within the conventions of a genre piece. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jason & the Argonauts (Don Chaffey, 1963)

 Intent with liberating his homeland from the tyrant Pelias (Douglas Wilmer), Jason (Todd Armstrong) gathers an elite team of warriors to travel to the other side of the world to retrieve a magical Golden Fleece that can assist him in his quest to save his home.

After watching The Mysterious Island, I had a hankering to check in with some of the other Harry Harryhausen canon. Netflix has the good sense to have Jason and the Argonauts as part of its library and you cannot go wrong with this one.

I enjoyed The Mysterious Island and Earth vs The Flying Saucers, but this one is hard to beat. I will admit that I was not that high on it the first time I watched it, but Jason is one movie that gets better with every viewing.

This movie feels like the stars aligning for Harryhausen - not only are the effects better than anything he had done before, but the movie around those effects does not feel like window dressing. The story is engaging, the direction is no frills but functional, the photography pops, the locations are gorgeous and there is some acting to write home about.

Todd Armstrong is a bit two-dimensional in the lead, but the character is very straightforward and action-based so he does not pull you out. He is also dubbed, and the voice actor (an uncredited Tim Turner) adopts an almost mid-Atlantic accent that allows Jason to both fit into the mythic diegesis and stand out from the British accents of his co-stars.

The movie is very well-paced, and the quest narrative is the perfect format for Ray Harryhausen’s set pieces. And speaking of which…

Jason and the Argonauts comes midway through Harryhausen's career, and represents a real escalation in scale and ambition. The animation and compositing effects are terrific, and what really stands out in this film is how specific each of the characters are. 

The great thing about Harryhausen’s effects is that he cares about characterisation, and gives his characters individual personalities. Every one of the monsters that the argonauts face is specific and singular. One of the big issues I have with modern movie creatures is how similar they all look and feel. 

And even though the effects are over sixty years old, these creatures still feel formidable and (occasionally) scary. The moment when Talos comes to life and turns his head to look down at Hercules in particular is terrifying. The effects’ impact is augmented by great sound design - the metallic creak of Talos’s limbs adds to the character's sense of weight and tactility in the environment.

That extends to all of the other monsters - the harpies' cries; the hydra's hissing; the skeletons' initial shriek as they charge. They all are individual and identifiable, and also are used to supplement personality. 

The final fight between Jason's team and the animated skeletons is a feat of special effects photography and choreography. A few of the composites are clumsy, but nothing takes away from how immersive and thrilling the sequence. Harryhausen animates each skeleton as if they were individual performers, and their reactions to their human opponents, whether parrying sword thrusts, befuddled by tactics or working together to hack a warrior down. All the creatures may be only obstacles, but they feel alive and more interesting than just being barriers for our heroes to get over. 

What also helps their impact is Bernard Hermann’s score, which provides memorable specific cues for each of the creatures. 

While all of the creature stuff is fantastic, Jason and the Argonauts is the rare Harryhausen movie where the human characters are as interesting as the monsters he has created.

As the man who conquers Jason's kingdom, Pelias is a great villain. Douglas Wilmer is only onscreen for a few minutes but he feels so human - there is a sweaty sense of self-awareness to the actor’s performance. Pelias knows what he is doing is wrong but he is to obsessed with gratifying his desire for power. 

He made such an impression, I was disappointed that the movie does not end with Jason confronting him.  The movie feels like it is building toward a confrontation but the movie ends with Jason facing another foe. 

This probably the point where I should digress and focus on the structure of the film. As far as the set pieces go, there is a sense of escalation. However, the movie ends with Jason facing off against King Aeetes (Jack Gwillim) for the Golden Fleece. This feels like it should be the midpoint in Jason's story, before he returns to kill Pelias.

It felt so natural as a story ending that before this viewing I thought it was Pelias who unleashed the skeletons on Jason and his crew.

For once I wish there was a sequel. Sadly, Jason was not a hit on its original release, so there was little chance of the argonauts getting to return home.

The gods are also fascinating - Zeus (Niall MacGinnis) and Hera (Honor Blackman) bicker like a married couple - there is a teasing game between them which is fun rather than malicious. Considering Zeus's history with mortal women, this is a rather benign treatment of the mythical characters.

Speaking of mythology, the film treats Medea as the hero's love interest, with no hint of her future. Nancy Kovack's performance is pretty flat, and the character is introduced towards the end of the movie so she does not have the opportunity to be that well-developed. This puts her at about a level pegging with Armstrong's Jason, so they are a perfect pairing.

One of the best and most enjoyable fantasy films I have ever seen, Jason and the Argonauts is a superb showcase for Ray Harryhausen's special effects, and a good lesson for filmmakers and visual effects practitioners in how to utilise effects for dramatic effect, as well as for spectacle.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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Earth vs the Flying Saucers (Fred F. Sears, 1956)

When mysterious flying objects arrive on earth and begin attacking rocket testing facilities, newlywed scientists Russell (Hugh Marlowe) and Carol Marvin (Joan Taylor) find themselves in the middle of the action.

While the saucers prepare for their final assault, the scientists race to figure out a way to defeat the seemingly invulnerable craft. Will they succeed? 

Released in 1956, this movie epitomises what I think of as a fifties mindset: aliens are here to conquer us and we are going to annihilate them. The frame of reference I have for this movie is Stephen King’s review in his 1981 tome Danse Macabre. He has a lot of fun ripping into the movie’s simplistic morality and post-WW2 US militarism.

While the political allegory is not subtle, it is part of the movie's charm. What I liked and disliked about the movie is how straightforward it is.

That bluntness does mean certain elements - like character development - are ignored, but there is a childlike pleasure to be had from watching alien ships destroy/crash into famous landmarks (a quality that Tim Burton would milk for black laughs in Mars Attacks!).

The movie is clearly made without a lot of money but that makes its adherence to whatever entertainment it can wring out of said resources is weirdly enjoyable.

A lot of the production value is derived from judicious use of stock footage - the early action sequences showing the flying saucers attacking the US space programme are fine examples of this technique, with Harryhausen’s models interacting with footage of boats, planes and a real V2 rocket exploding(?!).

Because of the stock footage, the authoritative narration and use of montage, the movie feels more like a non-ironic mockumentary, or a film about a hypothetical alien invasion. 

There is something minor key about Hugh Marlowe in the lead role - the character always feels like it is about to lean into machismo but never gets there.

The rest of the cast are serviceable but this movie is all plot. Character development is non-existent, and despite good chemistry with her onscreen husband, lead actress Joan Taylor does not get much to do. 

The aliens are more interesting than I was expecting. This movie drew on then-accounts of sightings and abductions for its imagery, which feels cliche now but what is intriguing about them is how vulnerable they are - they require lumbering suits to leave their ship, and they admit that they would prefer surrender to a drawn-out invasion. These invaders also reveal that they are survivors of a dead world. For unstoppable antagonists, there is a tragic dimension to their plight which the movie completely ignores. 

In another version of this movie, Marlowe and co. would negotiate with the aliens to de-escalate the situation and arrive at some kind of peaceful solution. Or maybe Marlowe would agonise over the destruction of an entire species. Not that this movie needed that kind of nuance, but the portrayal of the aliens brings up some quandaries that the movie is not designed to confront. 

For a movie that I expected to be super-Americana, there is a seed of an interesting idea to the ending - all the components for the device which sabotages the saucers come from all over the world. Marlowe’s initial idea fails and he ends up building on another idea by an Indian scientist that saves the day, with different parts of the weapon built and shipped from around the world.

It is the micro-budget version of the Independence Day ending (we never see the Indian scientist or anyone else involved), and the movie’s canvas strains as it heads into the finish but Ray Harryhausen does provide some neat images of saucers crashing into famous Washington DC landmarks.

While it is among the least interesting of the Harryhausen movies I have seen, it moves well and ends before it loses momentum. There is a cheap, unpretentious quality to it that makes it more fun than it has any right to be. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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The Mysterious Island (Cy Enfield, 1961)

 A group of Union soldiers escape a Confederate prison in a balloon. Caught in a storm, they are blown across the country and out to sea. Crash-landing on a mysterious island in the Pacific, our heroes soon realise that their refuge is home to a variety of super-sized creatures and a mysterious figure calling himself Nemo... 

Happy new year!

Based on a novel by Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island serves as a sequel to two of his previous works, 20 000 Leagues under the Seas and In Search of the Castaways.  I have never read this particular tome, but I did watch this movie years ago - I could not remember much so this was basically a fresh viewing.

Most famous for the visual effects by Ray Harryhausen, The Mysterious Island is a fun romp. It may not have the most charismatic cast, but the story moves at a clip, revealing the island's mysteries progressively as our heroes learn to master the basics of surviving on the island.

I was most impressed by the integration of the effects into the story. In a lot fo the Harryhausen films I have seen, the special effects have been the best part of the movie, largely because the rest of the movie underwhelmed. Either the story was rote, the acting would be wooden or the direction of the other scenes would lack the same energy as the set pieces. 

Director Cy Enfield was an American director who had been blacklisted and continued his career in the UK. He would go onto helm 1964's Zulu, which is probably his most well-known credit. 

His direction here is solid - I cannot point to any specific stylistic flourishes, but that is irrelevant. He knows how to shoot this story, and integrates his side of the action with Harryhausen's effects, with use of a mobile camera and good physical effects.

This might be an effect of improved technology, but there is far more care and immersion to the creature effects. The blue screen effects are far sharper than earlier Harryhausen productions which helps, but overall there is more of a sense of unity between the first unit and the special effects unit photography.

And while the human characters are not that well-drawn, they are all interesting. The screenplay throws in a minor conflict by having one of the castaways a Confederate soldier, but any potential conflict - particularly with the one black soldier - is avoided. While this feels ridiculous, the lack of racial and sexual conflict (a couple of women soon join the group after their ship sinks) is somewhat interesting, although it does mean the characters' conflict is purely situational rather than interpersonal - which might ahem given the actors something to do. 

The mostly British cast are fine. Michael Craig is solid in the lead as Captain Harding, but he does not have much to work with. 

The only actors who display any ease are the actors who do not have to concentrate on their accents -Michael Callan adds a little bit charm as journalist Brown (who exists to provide the other characters with a quick rundown on Captain Nemo), while Joan Greenwood plays an unflappable aristocrat who is somewhat nonplussed by her new circumstances - I am not sure if her breeziness is an acting choice or an actor's disinterest in the material.

Dan Jackson plays black soldier Corporal Neb Nugent - he is established as second in command to Harding, although he seems to have no authority over the other soldiers. The character does betray certain traits which seem questionable - he does dance for joy at one point - but he kind of fades into the background. This might have been Enfield's attempt at representation without overt commentary, but the performer does not get much to do. 

Percy Herbert plays the Confederate soldier Sergeant Pencroft. I am sure that Herbert is a fine actor but he is hopelessly miscast as Pencroft - the big issue is the accent. He tries his best but every time he opens his mouth, he betrays his true origins. I actually forgot that he was meant to be from the South. I get the sense that the filmmakers wanted to present a group of people of different backgrounds working together 

The big selling point for me is the portrayal of Captain Nemo. I watched the Disney version of  20 000 Leagues under the Sea so many times as a kid - I have not seen it in years but I'm pretty confident I can remember individual scenes almost verbatim. I was always fascinated by James Mason's portrayal of Nemo, and it drew me toward Jules Verne's books. I have a soft spot for anything Nemo-related, and I was looking forward to seeing how this iteration stacked up.

Initially, Nemo's presence is only hinted at - one of the survivors wakes up alone on the beach beside a fire; a giant bird who attacks the camp is felled by a bullet from an unknown shooter. Enfield does not even go so far as to visually hint at this mysterious benefactor.

It adds a neat layer of mystery to the movie over and above the expectation for whatever Harryhausen has cooked up.

When he finally makes his appearance about an hour in, the filmmakers give him a great entrance: following a boat exploding, a figure  rises out of the water and walks onto shore.

Nemo here is played by Herbert Lom. Best known for playing Inspector Closeau's boss Dreyfuss in the Pink Panther movies, he is a fine character actor and a solid choice to play Nemo. He has a great voice, and a certain remote quality which works for the role - this is a character who operates outside any moral binary. 

Lom's Nemo feels like more of an intellectual loner than Mason, but he is also more benevolent and accomodating toward the surviviors. He is pretty abrupt and does not like the company of other humans, which is an interesting dynamic that the story does not really develop. 

Although I enjoyed the delayed reveal, the character does feel shortchanged. In Verne's novel, we learn great deal about Nemo's origins and motives. There is not enough time for any of that, and the way the characters are portrayed does not provide an opening for getting into any arguments about Nemo's past actions.

The movie is really plot-driven, and Nemo is solely focused on escaping the island before a nearby volcano destroys it. The movie is more concerned with overcoming obstacles than internal conflicts.

While the movie was not a Disney production, I was surprised at how similar the exterior design of the Nautilus was - it is a bit of a disappointment, because one of the most memorable aspects of the production is the design of Nemo’s diving suit, which has a helmet fashioned out of a giant sea shell. It is a fun visual and I was disappointed that aesthetic did not continue into his ship. 

One of the funny things about Mysterious Island is that for once the Harryhausen elements are not the only exciting elements in the picture. This movie moves along and I never felt like checking my watch during the dialogue sequences.

As far as set pieces go, the ending is the best - our heroes travel to the sunken pirate ship to repair and raise it to the surface and are attacked by a giant cephalopod. 

This sequence is really tense and the live-action photography is well-integrated with the animation. Harryhausen's design is really terrific, and the whole scene is amped up by Bernard Herrmann's terrific score.

The Mysterious Island is a really fun movie. It has certain elements which could have been developed further, but as far as execution goes, this movie just lacks the scope and ambition which would define Harryhausen's next venture, 1963's Jason and the Argonauts.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.