Trollheart

Notes:
The incredible arrogance of the Nazis has been proven down through history, most keenly during the Nuremberg trials, where even when faced with their awful, heinous deeds, few if any admitted their guilt; they all, or almost all, believed they had done the right thing, what was required of them, what was necessary. Here, Heinrich Himmler, leader of the feared SS, clings to these ideals when he talks to a subordinate and confesses he is concerned about meeting General Eisenhower: "Should I shake his hand or give the Nazi salute?" he wonders. The fact that he could even expect to be entertained by the leader of the Allies, never mind actually shake his hand, speaks volumes not only about Himmler, but about the leadership of the Reich in general. They lived, mostly, in their own world and nothing would shake them out of their fantasy. Reality was not in vogue in Nazi Germany if it did not conform to the standards they had set down.

Hitler, of course, is the most tragicomic example of this. As he considers the destruction of his beloved Berlin, he comments to Albert Speer that at least it will be easier to rebuild once the city has been reduced to rubble. He believes a new Berlin will rise out of the ashes of the old, and rather like the emperor Nero in Ancient Rome, convinces himself that the old must be swept away for this to happen. Of course, technically, in time and after a great deal of hardship this will happen, but it will be despite Hitler, not because of him.

There's a bitterly touching scene near the beginning of the film where a father is trying to convince his son, who has joined the defence of the city with others barely past childhood, to come home. He outlines the pointlessness of dying for a city which is doomed, a war which is lost, but his son calls him a coward and runs from him. In an epilogue to this, we later see a young girl, who had been with the group, watch her friends take flight as they are overrun. Handing her gun to her commander, she asks him to shoot her, which he does. Having done so, the officer frets for a moment, quite obviously unsure what to do now. In the end, he shoots himself. In that one little scene is encapsulated the complete insanity, and the rabid fanaticism of the Nazi party. They would rather die than surrender. Of course, in the girl's case she must have feared rape from the oncoming Russians, but even so, she preferred to die (with honour!) than surrender or try to escape.

Another bitter, though in no way touching scene is when Dr. Schenke come across a small group of soldiers - Griefkommando - who have been tasked with hunting down any traitors, anyone who tries to get out of the city. The officer in charge has two old men up against the wall, and despite Schenke's attempts to stop him, kills both men. The Griefkommandant clearly enjoys his work, calling the men traitors but it's obvious that he doesn't really care: he's just a thug who is happy to have a chance to dominate someone and kill anyone he likes. Goebbels, meanwhile, is about to take the coward's way out. While Himmler actually believes he can broker a peace deal with the US Army, the propaganda minister knows the game is up, and he can only look forward to being hanged if captured. He has done enough in the war to merit that penalty twenty times over. So he has decided to take his own life, and in an insane suicide pact his wife will also die, after they have poisoned their children.

It's almost beyond belief to watch the doting father and the proud mother present their five children to Hitler, knowing that in a few short hours they will all be dead. Frau Goebbels turns out to be as cold and unfeeling as her husband; which is not to say that she does not love her children, for any mother would of course. But she truly and deeply believes that a Germany without the Fuhrer is not a place she wants her children to grow up in, so she convinces herself that she is performing an act of mercy. Hitler discusses suicide, too, with Eva Braun, and tells her shooting herself in the mouth is the quickest way, but she says she wants to have a nice corpse, so will take poison. Like children asking for sweets, Frau Junge (previously Humps) and Gerda both request a capsule, and Hitler, like an old grandfather doling out treats to his favourite nieces, obliges.

It's debatable whether, as he sits with the children around him, the youngest on his knee, and they sing to him, Hitler realises they are to be killed. I don't know if he even knows his propaganda minister is considering suicide. But if he does, he presents a forlorn figure as he watches what he must surely consider the flower of Germanic youth crowd around him, and knowing he is to die soon himself, must wonder how they will fare in the new Germany he has left them, this blighted, scorched, blackened thing which he must barely recognise as his beloved fatherland?

The moment when Frau Junge realises the full gravity of what is happening, the hopelessness of their situation is when she is told by Speer that "He (Hitler) needs nobody for what awaits him, least of all you", as he counsels her to get out of the city. She responds by pointing out that the Goebbels are staying, and have brought their children. A sad look and a nod is all it takes to explain to her why this is so, and even in the depths of this despair, she cannot bring herself to believe that any parents would willingly sacrifice their children in this way. Perhaps now she realises the depth of the fanatical devotion to the Fuhrer which remains in some quarters, though not many, and how far those who still follow him are willing to go to prove their loyalty, and evade justice.

QUOTES
Hitler: "In a war such as this one, there are no civilians".

Hitler (to Peter, a boy who has fought in the defence of Berlin; he can't be more than ten, twelve years old, if that): "I wish my generals were as brave as you". He of course means naive; there is little bravery lacking in the generals who command Hitler's military, but unlike Peter, they understand the futility of fighting and dying for a lost cause. In this scene, Hitler does that famous "pinching the cheek" of the boy that we've all seen in the newsreels on hundreds of documentaries about World War II: nice touch, I feel.

Traudl Junge: "I can't go; where would I go? My parents and all my friends warned me: don't get involved with the Nazis." Interesting turnaround: when we see Fraulein Humps (before she is married and changes her name to Junge) in 1942 she is delighted to have landed such a plum assignment, one of the highest and most coveted positions surely that a German woman could expect to rise to. But now, as it all comes tumbling down, literally, around her ears, she whines about making the wrong choice. She fears now that if she makes a run for it and is captured, she won't just be another German woman to be raped; she'll be Hitler's secretary, possibly an important prisoner. She may be interrogated, tortured, imprisoned. Even executed. Though she does not relish sitting in the Berlin bunker, listening to the sounds of the approaching artillery and waiting for the end, it is still preferable to taking her chances out in the wartorn streets.

Hitler: "If the war is lost, what does it matter if the people are lost too? The primary necessities of life of the German people aren't relevant, right now. On the contrary, we'd best destroy them ourselves. Our people turned out weak, and according to the laws of nature they should die out." Far from being the saviour of his people, Hitler has turned out to be their doom, but now that they are doomed it quickly becomes apparent that he only cared for the German people as long as he could use them, as long as he could push forward his plans and glorify himelf off their backs. Now that his dreams have all come crashing down, he blames them for not being strong, not being the people he imagined them to be, and sees the imminent defeat of his armies as their fault. As far as he's concerned, none of them deserve life. He sees them as nothing; mere pawns in his game and now that the game has been lost he is prepared to throw them into the fire rather than try to save any.

Hitler: "What remains after this battle is only the inferior. The superior will have fallen." What a fallacy! How could a superior force fall to an inferior one (well, David and Goliath, yes, but generally) and if the "superior" falls, then surely it can no longer be considered as such? Rather, Hitler should be admitting he has been beaten by a superior force - superior in numbers, in strategy, in will - and accept that his army, despite what he earnestly believes or believed, is the inferior one. There is no other conclusion that can be drawn. But Hitler refuses to see this, and sulks like a child who has suddenly discovered he is after all not the best ball player, or runner, or fighter.

Traudl Junge: "It's all so unreal. It's like a dream you can't get out of." Indeed it is. As Berlin shudders to the approach of the Red Army, as the Reich that was supposed to last a thousand years crumbles in less than seven, as Hitler's final hours leak away and his generals begin to desert him, Eva Braun and her cohorts determinedly, defiantly dance as if nothing was wrong, as if the music and the swaying and the singing can keep at bay the dread spectre that is even now placing colossal dark footprints in her beloved city, tearing it apart like a matchstick toy. It certainly does seem unreal. But it is very real, and the truth has finally come looking, like a landlord with an eviction notice, for Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Officer: "The Fuhrer was very impressed with your report. He has placed you in command of the defence of Berlin."
General Weidling: "I'd preferred if he had executed me!"

Hitler: "I never went to the academy. But I conquered all of Europe on my own!" Well, that's not strictly true, is it? Hitler gave the orders, made the plans, was the leading light and figurehead of the Nazi movement, but it was his generals, like Rommel and Keitel, and the ordinary soldiery of the Wehrmact that conquered Europe for him. His was the masterplan for the Master Race, but it was simple, honest, courageous if misguided men - as well as Nazi thugs and brutes - who brought about that plan, who fought and killed and died for his ideal, who made his dark vision a reality. Hitler personally never lifted a finger in the war against the enemy. He never shot a soldier, drove a tank or flew in a Messerschmidt escorting a Heinkel III on a bombing run over London. He never ran across fields or ducked behind bushes, watched his comrades die in his arms or heard them calling for their mothers at the end. He never even laughed with them as they pushed the British back to Dunkirk and kicked them out of Europe. Like most generals, most commanders-in-chief, he was safe in his headquarters when the blood was running in the streets and the tank tracks were crushing his opponents. Like most people in command during war, he has no physical blood on his hands, though in reality the blood of millions of men, women and children coat his shaking hands like glue that will not come off.

Brigadefuhrer Mohnke: "Your Volksturm are easy prey for the Russians. They have neither combat experience nor good weapons."
Goebbels: "Their unconditional belief in the final victory makes up for that."
Mohnke: "Herr Minister, without weapons these men can't fight.Their deaths will be pointless."
Goebbels: "I don't pity them. Do you hear me, I don't pity them! These people called this upon themselves. We didn't force them; the people gave us a mandate. And now they're paying for it."

It's clear from this exchange that Goebbels subscibes to Hitler's belief that the German people asked for this by allowing the Nazi party into power, and that now that it's all crumbling they deserve their fate. He doesn't care about the Volksturm, the regiments hastily cobbled together and made up of mostly old men and young boys in a final, desperate attempt to defend the city. They are merely a delaying tactic to hold back the Russians for as long as possible. But it must also be said that they are willingly thrown to the wolves in almost a gesture of contempt for them: cannon-fodder, no use for anything but that. Like broken toys they are thrown away and forgotten about.

Eva Braun, in a letter to her son: "Our entire ideology is going down the drain, and with it, everything that made life beautiful and worthwhile. After the Fuhrer and National Socialism, there's nothing left to live for. That's why I brought the children too. They're too good for the life that awaits them".

Speer: "Think about it. The children have a right to a future."
Magda Goebbels: "If National Socialism dies, there will be no future."

Hitler: "This so called humanity is religious drivel. Compassion is an eternal sin. To feel compassion for the weak is a betrayal of nature. The strong can only triumph if the weak are exterminated. Being loyal to this law I've never had compassion."

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THE STARS OF THE SHOW

Bruno Ganz, as Adolf Hitler
It would of course be odd if, in a film centred around him, Hitler were not the key figure here, but it's the portrayal of the Nazi dictator by Bruno Ganz that really strikes me. Unfortunately I don't speak German, and anyway my copy came bizarrely with some sort of Slavic audio track, but in any case it's subtitled so I just switched the sound off, but commentators remark upon Ganz's voice and accent being uncannily, even eerily close to that of the Fuhrer himself. Nevertheless, even without sound the man can still convey the passions, insanity, anger and refusal to admit defeat or take responsibility that make you see him not as Bruno Ganz, actor, but as the feared and hated leader of the Third Reich.

As the movie revolves around Hitler's final hours, there are no get-out clauses, like speeches to the masses from Nuremberg, where video footage can be studied and any actor worth his salt could competently duplicate Hitler's mannerisms and movements. In taking on the role of Hitler, Ganz has accepted that he must deliver a performance of a man who is broken, bitter and defeated, but determined to go down in a blaze of glory, to cheat his enemies of the final victory of displaying his dead body for all to see. He shows us the narcissism of the man, the blind faith in his own ability and his rage against everyone who is seen to have let him down. We see virtual spittle fly from his mouth and his eyes crease up like a mental patient's as he lets loose a tirade of abuse on those he considers traitors, weak and disloyal. We see his body shake with apoplexy and his fists bunch in rage, slam down on tables and desks, and we see too his advancing Parkinson's begin to take hold: Hitler walks shakily, bent over, his hand trembling uncontrollably as he hides it behind his back.

Adolf Hitler could never be seen as a sympathetic figure, nor should he be, but here Ganz makes him into a more tragic, almost pitiable man than a monster, while still showing that the rages he can fly into and the cold calmness with which he orders executions, or commands men to stay and fight to the death in a lost cause, marked him as a dangerous lunatic. For years, that dangerous lunatic was the most powerful man in Europe, and his long dark shadow fell across most of the world as it struggled to get out from beneath it, and fight its way back to the sunlight. Ganz also (although this must really be credited to the writer and director) avoids portraying Hitler as a parody, a cartoon, a black villain (though he was), by endeavouring to show some of the more human traits of the man who almost destroyed the world. He loves his dog, he loves his wife. He sits with his nephews and nieces on his knee. He thanks Frau Junge for her help as he goes to commit suicide.

Such human traits are needed, because otherwise Hitler is a two-dimensional figure, and no matter how evil a person is there is always some spark of humanity within them somewhere; perhaps they are kind to their mother, or like animals, or give to charities. Nobody is one hundred percent evil, and to present them as such would be too easy, too banal. Look for the good in anyone and you'll find it; it may be a tiny spark but you will find it. But Ganz and Hirschfield are careful not to allow Hitler's few small redemptive qualities to outshine his innate brutality. Even as we see that he loves Eva Braun, he tenderly rejects her pleas for clemency for her brother-in-law and tells her kindly that all traitors must die. When she, tears shining in her eyes, looking for mercy in the face of her soon-to-be husband that is not there, asks why, at this late point in the war, when all is lost, he must pronounce such a doom on her brother-in-law, he snarls "It is my wish!" revealing the truth behind Adolf Hitler: that he cares nothing for anyone, and all who oppose him must die, even if it is almost too late to exact that vengeance, even if the vengeance itself will serve no purpose.

Looking at Ganz, it's sometimes hard to separate actor from historical figure, and you feel at times that you've somehow gone back in time, and are watching the final days of Adolf Hitler as they unfold in the bunker below Berlin. The fact that the movie is shot entirely in monochrome adds to that feeling of being back in 1945. It must have been hard for Bruno Ganz to have taken on the role of such a figure in Germany: pilloried, hated and despised by so many and yet there are those who secretly hope to bring back the ideals he espoused, and so it was important that the film not be seen as glorifying Hitler in any way. It was important that though he be seen as a tragic figure there be no sympathy for him, no understanding, no attempt at redemption. History must also be reported as it happened; no revisionism. Those who committed unspeakable acts must face them in the film, not pretend they did not do what history proves they did. Even at the end, Hitler's one comfort is that he cleansed Germany of so many Jews. He has no regret on that score, believing he did the right thing.

German director Wim Wenders is on record as accusing the film of trivialising the role Hitler played in World War II and of glorifying him. I don't see it. There's nothing here that makes me feel "this was a misunderstood genius", or even makes me feel sorry for him. Uppermost in your mind all the time is the knowledge of what he has done, what has been perpetrated at his hands, and that's something that there will never be any understanding of, nor forgiveness for. I personally think Ganz is far and away the best Adolf Hitler I have ever seen on film.

Alexandra Maria Lara as Traudl Junge

When the film opens, the aged Frau Junge is relating her experiences in the service of Hitler, and lamenting that she was so taken in by his charisma, as were so many millions of Germans. Initially we see her delighted to get the job as his personal secretary, but as the war begins to turn against Germany and defeat seems inevitable, she operates in the film almost as a disconnected spirit, an observer watching the fall of the man she had considered to be the greatest German ever, and she sees too the way his people react, now that he has been proven to be fallible. Many turn against him, though in private, like Himmler trying to sue for peace and Goerring wishing to take over in Hitler's stead; many desert him, while the more loyal or stubborn refuse to surrender. Some, like Goebbels and his wife, decide suicide is the only path remaining to them, while Eva Braun, infatuated with him and it would seem perhaps fascinated by death, is happy to die with him.

She sees how the great Nazi empire was really held together by the almost supernatural strength of this man's charisma and will, and that when it is clear that he is losing his grip, and the war has turned against him, his empire begins to fragment as people lose faith in him and try to save their own skins. Hitler's fantasy orders, commanding armies that are not there into battle, thinking he will be able to spring a surprise attack on the Russians and trap them, and thus win the war, show everyone that he has lost touch with reality, and they can no longer depend on him. Frau Junge is torn as she watches the man she respected fall apart, and as the full horror of what he has done begins to become apparent she wonders what is to become of her.

She watches Eva Braun dance and party as if nothing is wrong, wilfully refusing to accept reality, witnesses firsthand the cold determination of Magda Goebbels, who reasons that her children cannot survive in a world without the Nazi party and Hitler, and hears, as does everyone else, the slow disintegration of the mind of her Fuhrer and he slips deeper and deeper into a fantasy in which he expects still to turn the tide of the war.

In ways, Trudl Junge represents all the idealistic, starstruck young women, and men, who followed Hitler into perdition, believing everything he said and trusting totally in his ability to lead them back to glory. She realises much later how wrong she was, as she relates in the film's closing minutes seeing the grave of a young German woman who was the same age as her, executed by the Nazis in the same month she signed on as Hitler's secretary. As she shakes her head and her eyes mist, her final words, indeed, the final words of the film, hang heavy in the air: "Youth is no excuse."

Why do I love this movie?

I absolutely did not expect to, and so it took me by complete surprise that it affected me as it did. I have never seen, nor do I think I ever will see, a more faithful and chilling portrayal of Hitler on the screen. The movie also shys away from explaining what Hitler was about, trying to see things through his eyes or even trying to excuse or justify what he did. It also similarly avoids the easy-to-fall-into trap of damning him, creating a two-dimensional caricature of ridicule and disgust. "Downfall" certainly shows the Fuhrer's madness, and no apologies are offered for what he did, but the crowning achievement I believe of the movie is that it's told through the eyes of an ordinary German girl; not a rabid Nazi, but someone who truly believed Hitler would be Germany's salvation, and who realises all too late that she has placed her faith in a madman, that she has, for the last three years, served a tyrant and a despot, and that he cares less about his people than an abuser of animals cares about his pets.

It's her realisation, tearful and horrified, as the film unfolds, that she has been party to such horrors, even if they were unknown to her, that shocks and revolts her, and in many ways she is a surrogate and metaphor for the entire German people, who were prepared to in some cases wilfully and in others blindly ignore all that was perpetrated in their name. The film newsreels of the people of Auschwitz being taken to see what had been taking place there is harrowing, but scarier yet is the look on some - not all - of the faces of these ordinary Germans. That looks says, without words, "so what?"

And it is this deep, ingrained belief in their own superiority and hatred of jews that sadly ensures that though Hitler is now just ashes, like his dream of empire, a thousand-year reich that lasted barely ten in all, Nazism and fascism is still with us today, and probably always will be.

For some people, history will always repeat itself, as they refuse to learn from it.
A very sad truth about we stupid humans.

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First Posted in The Couch Potato, December 7 2013



Title: The Seventh Seal
Year: 1957
Genre: World Cinema
Starring: Max von Sydow as the Soldier
Gunnar Bjornstrand as Jons
Bengkt Ekerot as Death
Nils Poppe as Jof
Bibi Anderson as Mia
Ake Fridell as Plog
Inga Gill as Lisa

Director: Ingmar Bergman
Writer: Ingmar Bergman

Perhaps one of the most famous and certainly most iconic films in World Cinema, Ingmar Bergman's “The Seventh Seal” was his ticket to the big time. The movie propelled him to international stardom, leading him to become one of the most respected and influential figures in cinema, directing over forty movies during his lifetime, many of which, like this one, he also wrote.

A knight, returning from the Crusades to his native Sweden, thanks God for his safe return. Just then Death appears, and the knight knows that it is his time. The knight, Antonius Block, challenges Death to a game of chess. He is an avid chess player, and prior to the arrival of Death was in the process of setting up a board. Death agrees, more out of amusement it would seem than anything else, and Block tells him that he must promise: as long as the knight can resist Death he may not have him. Should Block somehow defeat Death, then he will live and Death must go on his way. The rules agreed, the game begins.

Whatever the rules, it's clear that staying playing is not one of them, as the knight and his squire, Jons, move on from the beach, heading for the town. On the way they come across a hooded figure sitting on the ground, and ask the way to the inn, but the seated figure does not reply. It's soon clear why: he is dead. And horribly disfigured too. Further on, a family of travelling actors camp, and one of their number swears he has seen a vision of the Virgin Mary, though his wife does not believe him.

At the local church Block meets a painter, who tells him that the Black Death is rampant in the city, and people are dying in droves. Sick at heart, he goes to the confessional but finds there not a priest but Death, who asks him why he does not want to die. Not recognising the Reaper, Block says he does want to die, but before he goes he wants to understand, to know why God is how He is, to see His face and know that He exists. He does not want to go into the eternal void questioning, unsure. He wants, as Death points out, guarantees. He tells Death that he wishes to perform one last meaningful act in a life filled with careless abandon and aloofness from his fellow human beings, to atone for his coldness and lack of interest in others. He has already revealed his chess strategy to Death before he realises who he has been talking to, and curses himself.

As he leaves the church, Block comes across a young girl in stocks. He is told that she has been found guilty of devil worship, and is to be burned in the morning. Intrigued, he asks her if she has indeed seen the Devil but she does not answer. However, having remained silent while he was questioning her, she suddenly begins moaning and keening as soon as the knight leaves, perhaps recognising that someone who might possibly have come to her aid has departed, or perhaps seeing a kindred spirit.

They move on, coming to a village where Jons saves a young girl from being raped by a man he recognises as Raval, one who had convinced Block to travel to the Holy Land ten years previously, while he remained behind; it seems he has now devolved to robbing corpses. He spares him, but tells him that if he meets him again Raval will bear the scar for the rest of his life. He asks the girl to come with him, as he will need a housekeeper when he gets home. She is reluctant, but he reminds her that he saved her life, and so she goes with him.

In the town they come across the family of actors, who perform a dance and musical piece but are interrupted by a group of dour flagellants, religious doomsayers who foretell the apocalypse (which, as far as they're concerned, is already in progress) and try to placate God and atone for the sins of man by whipping themselves. The entire village sinks to their knees at the sight, but Block and Jons, who have seen the hypocrisy of religion and realised just exactly what they were fighting for in Jerusalem, do not. They watch, stony-eyed, as the zealots pass by.

As they arrive at the inn, Jof, the male actor, whose friend Jonas, also an actor, has run off with the blacksmith Plog's wife, is being hassled by Raval, the corpse-robber. Jons makes good on his threat earlier and slices the man's face. They spend an idyllic evening with Jof and his wife Mia, eating strawberries, and Block feels for the first time in a very long while at peace with himself and with the world. Deep questions of theology, the wars of men and even his own impending death seem far away, and he struggles to hold on to the memory as he returns to his chessboard to continue the game against his ancient adversary. However he has now a new view on life, and is not the dour, world-weary soldier he was before meeting and sharing a meal with the actors, and though he has already given away his strategy earlier to Death, who now takes his knight (how symbolic can you get?), Block laughs as he tells Death he has fallen into his trap, as the crusader now puts him in check.

Death though is more concerned at the change in the attitude of the knight, and wonders what has happened to have lifted his heart so? But Death has of course a trick or two up his own voluminous sleeve, and casually drops the observation into the conversation that Block and Jons are travelling through the woods with the actors who, he says pointedly, have a little son. He will not say why this information interests him, and the knight begins to worry, his facade of control and relaxation beginning to slip.

Before they leave, Jons is accosted by Plog, who begs the squire to allow him accompany them through the woods, but as soon as they are in the woods he spots Jonas exiting with his wife, and gives chase! The two face off, and initially Lisa pushes Jonas to protect her, but suddenly goes back to her husband, exhorting Plog to kill the actor. He fools the blacksmith though, pretending to take his own life in a not-quite-Oscarworthy performance, but it fools the others. As he makes his escape into a tree, the others having gone off, Death approaches. As Jonas watches first in annoyance then in terror, Death saws down the tree: Jonas's time has come.

As Block and Jons and the acting couple traverse the forest they notice it's very still and quiet, and they don't like it. Then a cart comes rumbling through but gets stuck in the mud. Block goes to help; it's the woman he spoke to earlier, the one accused of witchcraft. Having helped free the wagon, Block and his allies team up with the soldiers escorting it. There's safety in numbers, especially in this dark, quiet forest. Block takes the opportunity when they rest to again question the woman. He says he wants to meet the Devil, but she can't help him. “I only have to put out my hand and he is there”, she tells him, at least vindicating her accusation. But he can't see the dread one. Though she says the fire won't hurt her he sees fear in her eyes and knows it is only bravado. He gives her some herbs to inure her to the flames.

Raval returns, dying of the plague, but there is nothing they can do for him. Block returns to the chessboard to end his game with Death, and when Jof, who is able to see things others cannot, realises who his friend is playing with he becomes terrified and makes a break for it with his wife and child, though she can see nothing and thinks the knight plays alone. Desperately, trying to cover the actor's escape and distract his enemy, Block knocks over some of the pieces, but Death has perfect memory and knows where each piece was. He rearranges them on the board, and the game continues.

Of course, there can be only one outcome, and quickly thereafter Block is checkmated. Death has won, and the knight's life is at an end. However Death now reveals that in addition to taking Block's life when next they meet, he will also take everyone who has travelled with him. The fleeing actors feel Death's pursuit of them as they race through the forest and a great storm whips up. Block arrives finally at his castle, reunited with his wife after so many years. They have a final meal with the others in the party - the blacksmith Plog, his wife Lisa and the serving girl - before Death calls at the door and takes them all. Before he does, he asks Block casually if he has achieved his ambition of doing something worthwhile with his life, and the knight says he has, knowing that he has secured the escape of Jof, Mia and their baby. Death will not have them, at least not yet.

As they wake the next morning, having been passed over, Jof and Mia hug their baby and rejoice that they are still alive. Jof looks into the distance and says he sees the knight and his friends all walking behind Death, but as ever, Mia does not place much stock in her husband's fanciful visions, and they turn to go.


QUOTES
Block: “Have you come to fetch me?”
Death: “I have long walked beside you.”
Block: “This I know.”

(Block has obviously realised he is living on borrowed time, facing the hordes of the heathen in the Holy Land, and has probably escaped the clutches of Death more than once, though he must know that his luck cannot hold forever, and does not seem too surprised to see the apparition on the beach. The life of a knight was often a violent and brief one.)

Block (as the game begins): “You have black.”
Death: “It's most appropriate, isn't it?”

Block: “Why do you paint such daubings?”
Painter: “To remind people they will die.”
Block: “That won't make them any happier.”
Painter: “Why always make them happy? Why not frighten them a bit?”
Block: “They'll just close their eyes then.”
Painter: “Believe me, they'll look. A skull is more interesting than a naked wench.”
Block: “And if you frighten them?”
Painter: “They think, and be more frightened.”
Block: “And rush into the priest's embrace.”
Painter: “Not my business.”

(Ah but it is. This exchange clearly shows the underlying reason for the artist painting such a frightening mural on the church wall. If people are scared they will want someone to protect them from Death, and who protects from Death like God, or in this case, his agents on Earth, the priests? And can we doubt that this painting is commissioned and paid for by the selfsame priests who hope to reap the reward of sinners converting and seeking their protection?)

Block: “How can we believe in the faithful when we lack faith? What will happen to those of us who want to believe, but cannot? What about those who neither want to nor can believe? Why can't I kill God in me?”

Jons: “Our crusade was so stupid, only an idealist could have invented it!”

Block: “Have you seen the Devil?”
Monk: “Don't talk to her!”
Block: “Is it so dangerous?”
Monk: “I don't know, but she's seen as guilty of the plague that has befallen us.”

(Here we go again. Whenever something nasty happens people need someone or something to blame, and invariably it's minorities that pay the price. Here, as so often down through history, a woman - who is probably innocent: what proof have they that she “laid with the Evil One”? - is made the scapegoat for the infection that is sweeping through the town, the inexorable march of the Black Death.)

Jons: “Do you cook? I will need a housekeeper. I am married, but have hopes my wife will be dead by now.”

Plog: “Have you seen my wife?”
Jons: “No I have not. And if she resembled you I'd be quick to forget.”

Jons: “Ah it's Hell with women and Hell without them. Best to kill them when it's at its best.”

Jons: “Love is the blackest of all plagues. If you died from it there'd be some joy, but it almost always passes.”

A hilarious scene in which Jons shares his dislike of marriage or love with Plog, who is lamenting for his wife, who has run off:
Jons: “Henpecking and swills.”
Plog: “Screaming babies and wet nappies.”
Jons: “Sharp nails and malice.”
Plog: “The Devil's aunt for a mother-in-law!”
Jons: “Then when you're going to sleep...”
Plog: “Another tune. Tears, complaints and laments by the sackfull!”
Jons: “Why don't you kiss me?”
Plog: “Why don't you sing?”
Jons: “Why don't you love me like before?”
Plog: “Why don't you eye my new shift?”
Jons: “You just turn your back and snore...”
Plog: “Oh Hell...”
Jons: “Oh Hell! She's gone now! Be happy!”

Jons: “If all is imperfect in this imperfect world, then love is most imperfect in its perfect imperfection.” (whaaa...?)

PORTENTS OF EVIL

As with any perceived curse, the arrival of the Black Death in Sweden is seen to be presaged by many evil omens, none of which of course can be proven to have any solid basis in fact. But when repeated they take on a life of their own, as if the listener expected such horrors, and this is only confirming what they had already dreaded.

“Two horses ate each other”

“A woman gave birth to a calf's head.”

These are the sort of things that got talked about, reported and in many cases probably completely made-up, but once they'd passed through enough mouths, probably with little embellishments added on here and there, they became accepted as solid fact, and anyone who heard the reports would nod their head wisely and agree that this was just the sort of thing to expect.

APOCALYPSE THEN?

It's hard to imagine what it must have been like back in the fourteenth century when the plague swept across Europe. Medical science being all but non-existent and religious fervour fanning the flames of suspicion and superstition, it surely must have been all too easy to have believed that the Black Death was God's curse upon the world, and that the End of Days was indeed at hand.

More than a hundred million people died across Europe during its short reign, and the world's population was reduced by about a third, up to sixty percent of Europe's alone falling to its dread influence. Of course now we have a good idea - though arguments still persist on certain points - as to what caused the Black Death, but back then the prevailing theory was that it was carried on a “miasma”, or unholy wind, and the only way to avoid it was to stay out of the fresh air, which meant that more and more people were packed together breathing the same air and eating the same food for days or weeks at a time. In addition, since it was decided that God was angry with the world, the inevitable blame fell on many women who were accused of witchcraft, as we saw here, and as cats were seen to be the familiars of witches - demons in animal form - thousands were caught and burned. This is ironic, since the cats would have been hunting the rats whose fleas are now generally accepted to have carried the contagion.

Nobody was safe. Kings and queens died as often and as agonisingly as beggars and peasants. Truly, the words of James Shirley were never more appropriate: “Sceptre and crown must tumble down, and in the dust be equal made with the poor crooked scythe and spade”. A sense of terror and overwhelming despair must have gripped Europe as the Plague marched on, unchallenged and uncaring, and towns, cities, villages were destroyed in its wake. It truly must have seemed like the end of the world was approaching, and any day now seven angels would appear and sound the trumpets that would bring about Judgement Day.

Who could doubt it? It might seem fanciful now, but if you imagine yourself back in those times, with a total lack of knowledge as to where the Plague was coming from, no way to stop it and no sign of it weakening; as your family and loved ones died around you and you waited to be claimed, surely it must have seemed like God was levelling his final judgement on the world? As one writer put it: “How many valiant men, how many fair ladies breakfasted with their kinfolk and the same night supped with their ancestors in the next world?” Nobody knew when they might be next, and the graveyards filled up so fast that even consecrated burial became impossible, as huge mass pits were dug and filled up, more almost ready for filling by then.

The clergy, of course, loved it. No that's extremely unfair. They were no more immune to the effects of the Black Death than anyone else, and they did minister to the dying when nobody else would go near them, and died in their droves as a consequence. But the idea of this being the wrath of God was certainly pushed as an agenda by the Church, not only to fill up the pews but also to weed out the ungodly, bring sinners back into the fold and if necessary or expedient turn the anger of the righteous upon any minority group it saw as a threat, blaming them for the Plague. Thus the usual suspects - Jews, beggars, lepers, women, even those afflicted with acne or any other skin condition - could expect to burn as the hordes desperately tried to appease their angry god.

The whole idea of the movie being in black-and-white works very well too. I know that in the early fifties there were few movies made in colour anyway, but this would not work as well if it were in colour. The dark, oppressive, bleak atmosphere of the film fits in perfectly with the sparse, almost sketchy backdrop. At times it seems like our heroes are travelling across the landscape of a dead alien world, and in many ways it also reminds me slightly of the later “War of the Worlds”, where London is destroyed and there's nothing but rubble, with the occasional Fighting Machine moving among the shattered remains of Man's kingdom. It's bleak, it's barren, it's quiet: the quiet of the grave.

I would however personally question the use of music. I'm certain Bergman knew exactly what he was going for, and achieved that, but I just feel the sense of despair and hopelessness would have been added to had there been no music, no sound really except the occasional voices of the actors. It is though a true case of “less is more”: I can much more readily visualise and understand the belief of the apocalypse coming through this movie than I could with, say, 2012 or The Day After Tomorrow, with all their glitzy special effects and thundering musical scores. Sometimes, a whisper says something far more effectively than a shout.

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MESSAGE IN THE MOVIE?

This is a new section I'll be applying to any movies I feature from now on, in which I try to see what the moral behind the film is, what the writer or director was trying to convey to us, what we're supposed to take from it.

Here I think the underlying message is that you can't cheat Death. You can play him at any game you want, and despite your skill level at chess, ludo, cards or Nintendo, you're going to lose, because Death always has the last word. I think Block realises this; he knows he is going to die and he can't stop it - his boastful “If I win I live” is nothing more than that, a piece of bravado which he knows fully will never happen - but wants to delay the event long enough to try to do something meaningful with his last days.

Death is all around in The Seventh Seal, as if to remind us that it is an all-powerful, irresistible force, and even the priests with their faith in God and their adherents who believe repentance will save them, know that they too will die, almost glorying in it. They know (or think they know) that they will go to Heaven, whereas any sinners who succumb to the Black Death will be cast into the Pit. In many ways, these are the days they've been waiting for: Judgement Day is coming, and finally, instead of just spitting fire about it from the pulpit or the street corner where they have been ignored or at best tolerated, the servants of God on Earth have the chance to exercise real power, to show that what they were saying was not just rhetoric. God is real, they thunder. The Devil is real. You are about to be judged. The world is ending. Make your choice, and make the correct one.

Another message that can be taken from the film perhaps is that no matter how terrible our lives may be, we can try to make up for it before the end, and make our existence here have been worth something. In helping the actors escape the clutches of Death, and perhaps also easing the witch-girl's passage into the next world, the knight must feel that he has, finally, made a difference and done something special with his life.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the idea that God is not listening comes through very clearly. The film has been tagged with the theme of “the silence of God”, by people far better versed in this than I could ever be, and you can see Block's frustration as he fumes “Why must God hide himself in clouds?” He wants God to reveal himself, to prove he is there, to tell the knight there is, has been, a point to his life, and that there is somewhere to go when he dies. But of course God remains silent. Whether this is because He does not wish to respond, or is not there to respond, is of course left unanswered. Someone once said that if we ever learned the true meaning of life we would go insane. Some things are best left a mystery. But Block rages at what he sees as God's indifference as the people die and wonders why he fought for Him in the Holy Land, if his reward on returning to his home is more misery and death? Hardly a hero's welcome. But God does not care, if He exists. What are the petty concerns of men to such as He?

LAUGHING IN THE FACE OF DEATH
It's an interesting thing about this movie that, dour and stark as it is, with a downbeat message and certainly nothing approaching a happy ending, there is a lot of comedy in it. For me, it plays like a Shakespeare comedy at times. Plog, the lovelorn blacksmith looking for his errant wife. Jonas, the actor who pretends to kill himself and then ironically loses his life when Death cuts down the tree he is hiding in. The hilarious conversation between Jons and Plog on the subject of women. It all seems out of place somehow, and yet fits in perfectly, a kind of “live while you can” attitude. As one of the characters says, if these are the last days then they may as well enjoy them while they can. A commendable attitude, and you can see how, with the Plague burning through Europe and living to the next day as uncertain as a gamble on a horse, people decided to throw caution, and inhibition to the wind.

Reminds me a little of the streets of Berlin, six hundred years later, as related in my article on Downfall, when the citizens drank and danced and screwed as the Russians got closer to the German capital. Those people knew they were doomed, but were determined to live their final hours without fear or care. So too the Europeans, who greeted each new day as an unexpected bonus, and checked to see who of their family and friends had died, lived live to its fullest, trying to put the spectre of death, always looming large in the foreground, behind them.

So the many instances of comic relief and lightheartedness here are not in fact anachronisms at all; on the contrary, they fit in perfectly with a world where death stalked you at every step, and each day could be your last on the Earth. What would it benefit anyone to spend their time fretting in their hovels, or trembling behind mighty castle walls, waiting for the approaching touch of the Reaper? Far better to squeeze the last life had to give out of it, and enjoy the remaining days, hours or even minutes.

This is why the priest who comes through the village is so scandalised that the people are watching a comedy act. He soon sets them right, and a dark atmosphere of doom and despair settles over the previously jolly gathering, as he self-righteously and contemptuously tells them they are all damned, and they had better make their peace with God before they are taken. His crew are a miserable lot: carrying huge crosses, whipping themselves, in rags and moaning and lamenting their lot. Which way would you prefer to spend your last days, had you been given the choice? Unfortunately we don't see what happens to the priest, but can only hope the Plague takes him too.

WHY DO I LOVE THIS FILM?

You know, I don't. This is the first time I've ever watched it. I've known of it of course, and seen extracts from it, but never sat down and watched the whole thing, but I wanted to do so for this journal. Now that I have seen it, I can understand its place among the greats of World Cinema, but then I'm not an aficionado of same, and to me it's a really good movie, but I seriously doubt I'd watch it again. For one thing, it's too unremittingly dark, the comedic scenes referred to above notwithstanding. There's no happy ending, no resolution and no real moral in the story, as I already said, other than that Death catches us all in the end. But it's not just that. The ending is very stark, disappointing and even, yes, a litlte scary. At the end, we see Block truly frightened as he realises now he is going to die: there are no more chess games, no more word play, no more extensions. He has done what he wanted to do but he has failed to get the answers he wanted, and as Jons, in typical nihilist fashion, sneers that there is nothing beyond this world, that they are all going forward to darkness and nothingness, it clearly terrifies him. He wants there to be something, he wants God to exist, but no evidence of such has been forthcoming.

Indeed, at the very end of the movie Jof says he sees them all dancing with Death along the hillside in the Danse Macabre, and we can only guess at what truly awaits them in the afterlife. But it's not just that which fuels my kind of disappointment with this movie, compared to how I had imagined it would be. My impression of this film was that it would be mostly - say, eighty to ninety percent - taken up with the chess game between Block and Death, with many deep ruminations and philosophical musings on the nature of God and of Man. But in the event, the chess game is if anything very much secondary to the main plot of the film, and only features in about four scenes in total. This surprises me. I always assumed the movie was built around the game, and it seems this is not the case. I'm not sure why it isn't, when the central premise of the film is the chess game as the knight struggles to best or at least hold off Death in return for his life.

But it certainly gives a good impression of life during the Middle Ages, and especially when shown against the dark, pustulant backdrop of the Black Death. The dialogue is at times very stilted, though this probably comes more through translation than anything else, and the music in the film - not the score, but the songs sung as part of it - are nothing short of annoying. Each actor or actress plays their part well, and one of the best scenes, actorwise, in the movie is the girl accused of being a witch, as she is raised onto the stake and stares ahead with eyes that suddenly seem terrified, and surprised at being so. She gives the impression she expected her master, the Devil, to be there to protect her and now he is not. With one agonised, lost look, this actress, who has only really a bit part in the movie, conveys more than almost all of the other players do. It's powerful, simple and wrenches at your soul.

I'd certainly recommend this film - probably everybody should see it, and don't be put off by the fact that it's subtitled (if you are) as they're handled very well, visible and clear, no looking past someone's shoulder to see what the last word is or anything like that - but I don't see it racing to the top of my favourites list any time soon. Nevertheless, I am glad I got to eventually see it, even if it was not quite what I had expected.

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Surfacing 01.02.17
Get out of the water NOW!

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Originally posted December 21 2013



While nobody would ever accuse me of being the most religious person, I do like the story of Jesus and love to see movies about it. Christian fundamentalists would have us all believe that God created everything, and that may be true. If so, then he also created movies. But in another strange, kind of roundabout way, movies could be said to have created God, at least for the big or small screen. As far back as 1905 they were making silent movies about Our Lord, and of course with the advent of colour, 70mm film and things like Cinemascope and Technicolour, it was only natural that the sixties would see some of the biggest, baddest and most over-the-top movies about Jesus ever made.

That’s what this section is all about then: deciding which is the better. I had originally intended this to be a three-way fight, but the third contestant, 1953’s “The Robe”, turns out not to be about Jesus at all. He’s in it, but only peripherally, and really it would be unfair to put such a movie up against the other two, so we’re down to a proper head-to-head, a real slamdown and a fight for the title of the Classic Christ Movie.

In the blue corner, weighing in at 260 minutes and with a budget of approximately 21 million US Dollars, we have

Originally a four-hour-plus epic, drastically cut back in later releases and eventually shortened to 2 hours 17 minutes, “The Greatest Story Ever Told” (you’ve got to capitalise the lot, don’t you really?) was based on a novel by Fulton Ouster, itself based on a radio play that ran in the US in 1947 episodically. George Stevens was the man who intended to bring it to the big screen, but it was a slow process. The screenplay took over two years to write alone, and by 1961, four years before its release date, costs had already spiralled to a staggering 2.3 million US Dollars, which even back then was a boatload of money, considering not one scene had yet been shot! So concerned were they with the rising costs involved in making the movie --- or more correctly, preparing to make it --- that backers Twentieth Century Fox dropped the project, and Stevens had to be saved by United Artists, who eventually released the picture.

Like most of the movies about the life of Jesus, this sticks fairly closely to the “facts”, as they were, which is to say, the version described in the Bible. It’s almost a direct telling of the story from that revered tome, and doesn’t deviate much if at all from the accepted version. Interestingly though, it was a general unknown who was offered the top role, indeed the very man who played Antonius Block, the knight in recently-reviewed Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, Max von Sydow, and for my money he did a good job. Apparently Stevens wanted someone not already linked with any role or character, someone US audiences would not know. I must say though, Charlton Heston in the role of John the Baptist comes close to stealing the show, and that’s not an easy thing to do when you’re up against the Son of God!

The version I watched clocked in at just under three hours and twenty minutes, and even at that reduced time from the original it seemed long, slow and boring in many places. Definitely a case of being overstretched. I shudder to think what the full version was like! The film also suffers from a “me too!” syndrome, with film stars all wanting a bit part, some of which make no sense. The most famous and well-known of these is of course the sudden appearance out of nowhere by John Wayne, who drawls “Truly this man was the son of God!” in his characteristic, laconic and almost bored manner, but Martin Landau fails to shine as Caiphas, Roddy McDowell as Matthew is almost anonymous and David McCallum is completely wasted in the role of Judas, a one-dimensional, flat and uninspiring character compared to the one played in the other movie. Others of note include Pat Boone, Shelley Winters, Angela Lansbury and Sidney Poitier, though what any of them are doing in the movie is anyone’s guess. Even Star Trek’s Sarek, the late Mark Lenard, gets a look in!

The music is of course stunning and evocative, as you would expect, and Alfred Newman’s score was one of five Academy Awards the film was nominated for. Whether it won any of them I don’t know. The sets are also very impressive, though I do wonder about Stevens’ insistence on shooting the whole thing in America? Sounds a little like trying to prove God was born in Queens to me! Mind you, our other movie didn’t head to the Holy Land either, but with a budget of twenty-one mill you would have thought they would have, literally, gone the extra mile. Or few thousand miles, I guess. Nonetheless, I have to admit that when they show the scene ostensibly taking place in the desert where Jesus faces forty days and nights of temptation and fasting, I would never have guessed it was Death Valley, and similarly, the sermon on the Mount actually takes place in Utah, so it’s not like it’s obvious, but still, you do feel a little bit cheated that they’re not actually walking in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Unless he ever visited California, which I find unlikely….

All quibbles aside though, and remembering that the movie never grossed even its freakishly huge budget, and so was seen as a flop and an expensive failure, I did enjoy The Greatest Story Ever Told, with certain reservations, which I will detail later on in this article when I compare the two movies and put them up against each other. But what about its classic opponent?

Well, in the red corner, ladies and gentlemen, will you please give it up for


Not to be confused with the earlier movie of almost the same name from the twenties, which just added the definite article to its title, this was the other “blockbuster bible movie” of the day, and the two are in many ways very similar, and in other ways poles apart. Interestingly, while George Stevens was flying to Rome to consult the Pope on the making of his movie, this one slipped in under the radar and got released four years before his made the big screen, which must have been annoying for the great filmmaker, as this would have been the first “real” movie about Christ since 1935’s Golgotha, unless you count Ben Hur, which I don’t, or indeed The Robe, which I also don’t, as neither focus on the actual figure of Christ and he is basically incidental, although instrumental, to the storyline. But poor old Stevens: that’s what you get for farting around with 352 oil paintings as your storyboard and retaking every scene a zillion times: someone else beats you to it!

Starring Jeffrey “I could have been Kirk” Hunter in the top role, it’s something of a different take on the story, though again it sticks very closely to the writings of Scripture. King of Kings details the birth of Christ, the journey to Bethlehem and the exile to Egypt, whereas this is brushed over in The Greatest Story Ever Told, which is odd, considering the latter is the longer picture by about an hour and would have easily been able to accomodate such a surely integral and important part of the plot, as it were? But like its rival, King of Kings, mainly concentrates on Jesus’s life from age thirty or so, from the time he begins to preach, gathering his disciples to him and generally getting up the noses of the Romans. That’s not surprising, as really, up to that point there’s little in the Bible about Jesus the man, leading to speculation on what exactly he did for those twenty-odd years between childhood and manhood, but that’s another story. Any film or series focussing on Jesus will always be firmly set in this short period of his life.

There are, as I said, things I like about TGSET that I don’t like about KOK, and vice versa of course. One of the former is the way Jesus’s miracles are handled. In this film, we see things like Jesus approaching a blind man who bumps into him as just a shadow on a wall. He stretches out his shadowy hand and the man drops his stick, obviously (I guess) cured. A madman is not portrayed as very mad (did you see the guy in Jesus of Nazareth? THAT was scary!) and in general the miracles are not quite glossed over but definitely not given the sense of drama and power that TGSET lavishes on them. Contrast the scene outside Lazarus’s tomb in the other movie with the one here - oh no wait, don’t. King of Kings doesn’t feature that miracle. What? Jesus’s biggest feat, his crowning glory, his piece de resistance, when he proves even Death can’t hold sway over someone he calls forth, and they don’t show it?

Yeah. The movie suffers from a massive dearth of miracles, and those that are shown are treated in an almost offhand, matter-of-fact way. No angels singing, no shafts of sunlight bathing the Saviour’s face as he performs these wonders, no crowds gathering to watch in amazement and then spread the word that the Messiah has come. Very drab and humdrum. Maybe there was a reason, maybe director Nicholas Ray didn’t want to focus too much on the miracles aspect of the story, but come on! The guy raised the dead! He healed the blind and the lame! He cast out demons! You have to show those, and make them an important part of the story.

But where King of Kings fails in respect of its opponent - Miracles: Greatest Story Ever Told 1, King of Kings 0 - it walks all over it (I know: I was going to say something else but figured it wouldn’t be appropriate when dealing with these movies. Gotta have respect, even if you don’t believe!) on another score, and that is the portrayal of Judas Iscariot. From an early age, we Irish were brought up on the notion that Judas was evil. He betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, but we were never told why. We never asked. It was just accepted, the same as any religious dogma in Ireland at the time was. WHY had you to fast before receiving Holy Communion? Why could you not touch it if it got stuck to the roof of your mouth - as it always, without fail, did - and why were you supposed to (in my parents’ day, not mine) genuflect if you met a priest in the street? Nobody asked these questions: they weren’t even rhetorical, they just weren’t accepted as questions. They just were, okay? Accept it and stop asking stupid questions. In the very same way, Judas was a betrayer, a coward and a traitor and you should hate him.

It wasn’t till I watched Jesus Christ Superstar and Martin Scorsese’s excellent The Last Temptation of Christ that I got the idea that Judas was not just an evil figure, he was a person; a person with ideals and hopes and dreams, and that he betrayed Jesus for a reason. This made more sense, and indeed this is the tack that King of Kings takes. Judas is a revolutionary when we meet him, fighting alongside Barabbas, his leader, and he believes he can turn Jesus to their cause, convince him to fight for Judea and call down hosts of angels, or at the worst, lead his hosts of followers against the Roman oppressor. When he sees this will not happen of its own accord, that Jesus is dedicated to peace, Judas tries to force his hand, hoping that if he is arrested he will spring into action and defend himself, and become an ally of he and Barabbas, leading the Jews to glorious liberation.

At last, someone gets it. I’m no connoisseur of movies about Jesus, but I think I’m safe in saying that King of Kings was the first of this genre to look sympathetically at Judas. Tim Rice would do so ten years later, and others would too: even in Jesus of Nazareth I seem to recall him being a more rounded, less cartoon-villain figure, but this was the first time I think anyone had voiced the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Judas had a reason, excuse or agenda in betraying his master. Played by Rip Torn, he’s certainly a better character here than in George Stevens’ somewhat pompous oversimplification of the man. In TGSET Barabbas is only mentioned at the end, when he gets his freedom at the expense of Christ’s, and he has no other role at all to play in that movie. Here, he is a pivotal if not central figure, laughing at then briefly sharing Judas’s hope that they might ally with the Messiah, finally using his speech at the temple to launch an abortive attack on his enemy. When he realises later that Jesus is dying in his place (not that he has a choice of course, but the people have chosen Barabbas) he asks “Why? I never did anything for him.” He truly can’t understand it, though Lucius, the Roman general, scowls “Your people shouted loudest”, obviously at pains to make the rebel leader realise it is only simple good fortune that has secured his freedom, and his life.

Although much shorter than its later companion film, King of Kings gets pretty much the whole story in, which of course you would expect and demand, but also manages to presage it with the arrival of Pompey as he claims Jerusalem and sets up a garrison there, and adds in elements of the later Jewish struggle for independence and freedom, as well as alluding to the Roman governor, Pilate’s wife being somewhat sympathetic to Jesus, or at least his message. Again though, the two movies differ vastly when it comes to the crucifixion scene, with TGSET losing out as it watches much of the action from far off, down the hill at Golgotha. I’m not saying I wanted closeups of the nails going into Jesus’s hands or anything, but there’s a more personal, intimate feeling to the scene in this film, with the action all taking place in front of you; you see Christ nailed to the cross (tastefully done) and raised up, you see people moving about below him as he hangs there, you see the two thieves talk to him (although in fairness you see this in the other movie too, but I think this one just about edges it in terms of drama) and best of all, there’s no John Wayne!

Resurrection, I’d say there’s very little between the two movies, though this one does just end with the shadow of Christ falling across the apostles, who then sort of wander aimlessly offscreen in the final scene; where it actually shows Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb in this movie, in TGSET she just meets the angel inside the tomb once Jesus has risen, so again I think this one is slightly more personal. Not to mention that in the closing scene of this we see the smiling, radiant face of Jesus while in the other movie he’s just a shadow and a voice. Interestingly, the very same end hymn is used, though it seems to be quite appropriate and was probably the only one that could have been used.

So, both movies represent the story of Christ’s birth, life and death reasonably well, and certainly better than some have down the years. But each has its own flaws, and while in one category TGSET triumphs, in others it’s KOK that lands the killer punch. So, which movie is better? How can we even choose between two such classics? We probably in reality can’t, but for the purposes of this article we have to: to quote Highlander - there can be only one. So how do we do that? Well, let’s list off the main points and compare like for like, and see how we do. For each scene, aspect or fact considered I’ll award a score out of ten, explaining along the way how I arrived at that score. Then we’ll total them up and see who comes out on top, or if this ends up being a dead heat. Even I don’t know at this point. Oooh! Exciting, isn’t it?

What do you mean, no? Fuc - er, peace be with you, my son...

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All right then! One of the most important things for any movie is its budget versus its box office. In other words, how much did it cost to make and was that amount recouped, or, as would be highly expected, seriously exceeded on its release? Let’s see.

(For handiness’ and laziness’ sake I’m referring to each movie by a single letter. See if you can guess which is which!)

G: Budget 21 million, Box office 15 million. (Naturally these are estimates, and if they’re wrong blame Wiki…)

K: Budget 5 mill, Box office 13 million.
Now on the face of it it would seem that K made less than G, but on the other hand, taken as a percentage of its final costs, K came close to tripling its budget, so definitely made money, whereas G failed to even make its budget, coming in with a definite, and quite substantial loss, almost twenty-five percent in fact. So on pure figures for its return, and indeed on its initial budget too, K did better, costing less to make and earning more in the long run. Though both movies were considered commercial failures, one failed at a cheaper rate than the other. So King of Kings wins this easily.

Scores
G 3/10
K: 8/10 (It wasn’t a blockbuster success, which is why I’ve given it a less than perfect score)

Next up, length of movie. Now, this can be a good or a bad thing. Long movies can pack more story in, or they can just get boring and feel long-drawn out. But when you’re dealing with a Biblical movie I think you really work with the maxim “the longer the better”, as long as there’s enough there to keep your interest. Though G dragged in places, overall it was relatively well-paced and didn’t seem too overlong. It’s certainly longer than K. Here are the stats.

G: 240 mins (original) down to an eventual 137 mins for the US release, with the one I watched being a total of 200 minutes.

K: 168 minutes
There’s no contest. Though K filled its brief well for its overall shorter length - longer than the eventual US release though - the original cut of G has over fifty minutes on it, so it’s a clear winner for G.

G: 9/10 (Only awarded less than top score due to the different lengths, and the fact that it dragged a little in places)
K: 6/10

In terms of being “first to the post”, ie the first major Biblical film to hit the screens since the thirties, and therefore essentially the first “real” movie about Jesus, George Stevens’ faffing about and eternal procrastination, along with his perfectionist nature and a ballooning budget that saw his original backers walk away from the deal allowed his rival to get in a full four years before his film saw the light of day, so it’s not even close.

G: Released 1965 - 4/10
K: Released 1961 - 9/10 (Again, not top score because it was not the first EVER movie about Jesus, but close)

And now we come to the main man, as it were. The face-off between the stars, the top men who played what was not a title role but really was, the two actors who brought Jesus to the big screen. In K, we had Jeffrey Hunter. I only know him as the original Captain Pike from the pilot episode of the original Star Trek, the man who turned down the recurring role to pursue a “proper” movie career. I hated him in Star Trek but I must say he did this role proud. With a warm, gentle smile and a humbleness seldom seen among actors he may not have been the ideal choice for Jesus, but he sure was better than Ian Gillan in Jesus Christ Superstar the stage production, a decade later (shudder!) and I think he did really well.

Max von Sydow was more or less unknown to US audiences and fans outside of Sweden, or those who followed the films of Bergman, so for him to take on such a major role must have been a hell of a challenge. Interesting that in the other movie I saw him in recently, The Seventh Seal, he was a knight doubting the existence of God, who says at one point to Death “Why can’t I kill God within me?” and then a mere six years later he’s playing the son of that very God. But he plays the role well, his slight Scandinavian accent adding to the, if you like, foreigness of Jesus and making him less the all-American blue-eyed boy that could be seen at times in Hunter’s character. Probably not as charismatic as his rival, von Sydow exuded for me more a sense of friendliness, calm and love than did Hunter, but even so it’s hard to choose between them.

I think in the end, von Sydow had more to prove, being an “unknown” to most cinema-goers at the time, so I’ll shade it slightly on his side, and award him the higher score, though there’s not that much in it really.

G: Jesus portrayal by M. von Sydow 9/10
K: Jesus portrayal by J. Hunter 8/10

Then we come to Judas. This isn’t even close. As related in the synopses of the movies above, the far stronger character is the one in K, where Judas is seen as a rebel, a freedom fighter and has a good, if slightly skewed, reason for betraying Jesus. The part is also better played by Rip Torn, though we know what a great and accomplished actor David McCallum is; he just had a really weak role to work with, and through most of the movie looks unhappy, and so he should be. His Judas could have been so much more, but he’s left playing a cardboard cut-out.

G: Judas role (This does not reflect on how the character was played, but how he was written, as it would be unfair to blame an actor for simply carrying out the role he was asked to play) 2/10
K: Judas role 9/10

Music score: Again, there’s little to choose here. Both Miklos Rosza’s Oscar-nominated music and that of Alfred Newman are stirring, grandiose pieces of music that make your heart swell and at times, in certain scenes, bring the odd tear to the eye. I can’t choose between these so I’m going to call this a dead heat and award the very same to both.

G: Score by Alfred Newman 9/10
K: Score by Mkilos Rosza 9/10

Awards/Nominations: From what I’ve read, though both movies were commercial flops, G was nominated for awards but I can’t find anything about K. Five awards in total, whether it won them or not I’m not sure, but even the nominations have to allow G to knock K flat on its back and perform a, at least temporary, victory dance on its body.

G: Awards (5, or at least nominations for 5) 8/10
K: Awards, none 0/10

Some other characters in brief, compared. Herod in K I found more evil, though cartoonishly evil, whereas in G he was more coldly evil and sort of like a snake, quietly evil as opposed to loudly evil, Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter as opposed to Dafoe’s Green Goblin. It sort of depends on what you’re looking for in a villain I guess, but for me I actually preferred Frank Thring’s portrayal of the evil king of Judea as opposed to Jose Ferrer’s version. It’s hard to choose: one was evil on a megalomaniacal scale, which was quite satisfying if a little one-dimensional, and was clearly harbouring ungentlemanly and unfatherly affection for his stepdaughter, Salome (King of Kings) while she was only alluded to in TGSET and the link between her demanding the head of John the Baptist and Herod’s decision to put him to death was made much muddier and not at all clear. Hmm. Because I like cartoon villains, and because he played the part so well, I’m going to go for Thring in King of Kings, but as I say, it’s close, almost too close to call. I am calling it, though.

G: Herod Antipas portrayal (Jose Ferrer) 8/10
K: Herod Antipas portrayal (Frank Thring) 9/10

Yeah, I know I said in brief, and that was hardly brief, but you know me. Anyway, there’s one or two other main characters I want to look at, but in brief (and I mean it this time) here are some lesser ones.

Mary, mother of God. The version in K bugged the hell out of me with her eternal beatific smile that became almost that of an idiot and just made me want to punch her in the face (sorry), while the one in G was much more restrained and to be fair, hardly in the movie at all. But for her less-than-angelic portrayal Dorothy McGuire takes it for me.

G: Mary, Mother of God portrayal (Dorothy McGuire) 7/10
K: Mary, Mother of God portrayal (Siobhan McKenna) 4/10

Mary Magdalene. Surprisingly (or perhaps not; her time on film had not yet come) in both movies she’s almost anonymous. Yes we see the famous stoning scene in both, but after that, other than being seen washng Jesus’s feet in one movie and being the one to go to the tomb after three days in both, we see little of her, so there’s not an awful lot to choose from. I’ll have to take it from her performance in the stoning scene, and in this case I’m giving it to Carmen Sevilla in K.

G: Mary Magdalene (Joanna Dunham) 5/10
K: Mary Magdalene (Carmen Sevilla) 7/10

Barabbas. Well like Judas, and as mentioned in the section on him, there’s no contest. In G there is no role for Barabbas, apart from the traditional one at the end, when he is allowed go free for Passover in place of Jesus, while in K there’s quite a little backstory built up around him, allowing him his own identity and role in the movie, and also giving a proper and understandable reason for Judas’s eventual betrayal of Jesus. King of Kings wins this by a country mile.

G: Role of Barabbas 1/10
K: Role of Barabbas 8/10

Pilate. Though he’s central to the story of Jesus - he is, after all, infamously remembered as the man who sentenced the Saviour to death - there’s very little real substance to the role played by him by Telly "Kojak” Savalas in G, and I for one couldn’t stop expecting him to pat Herod’s cheek and say “Good boy! You do what you're told, nobody will get hoyt, capische?” Sorry but that’s just me, who only knew him from that role on TV. But even apart from that he puts in what I consider to be a poor performance, while the lesser-known (to me) Hurd Hatfield makes a much better fist of it, projecting the true persona of a man who is somewhere he does not want to be, is there because the local king couldn’t keep order and also knows or suspects that he is being punished by being sent to this remote outpost, far from the empire and any chance of advancement. It doesn’t help that his wife is sympathetic to the message of Jesus. Also it comes across in G that Savalas is only there because he’s a big-name star, and not because he’s best suited for the role. In fact I think he completely fluffs it. I think Hatfield plays Pilate best, so I award the high score to him.

G: Portrayal of Pontius Pilate (Telly Savalas) 4/10
K: Portrayal of Pontius Pilate (Hurd Hatfield) 8/10

And one more character whose portrayal makes the difference between the two films is John the Baptist. Central to the first half of the movie, he bestrides both like a colossus, but in G he’s played by the walking ego, Charlton Heston, who tends to bring more of the macho, self-confident and arrogant posturing to the character than does Robert Ryan in K. His take on John is far more humble, a tough, principled and godly man who knows he is just marking time on this planet, waiting for the arrival of the one whose coming he heralds. Heston makes it more about Heston, Ryan makes it more about John, and has rightly been cited as the best John the Baptist you will see in film, so he easily gets the nod.

G: John the Baptist (Charlton Heston) 5/10
K: John the Baptist (Robert Ryan) 8/10

Actually, that’s not it. There’s one more character I forgot to include. Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name! Yeah, it’s the Devil. The only real role Satan plays of course in the story is when Jesus is out in the desert and he’s being tempted by the Evil One, but in G he’s personified by a strange dark hermit Jesus meets, played by the wonderfully evil Donald Pleasance, while in K he’s nothing more than a disembodied voice, the actor not even credited. So the best Devil has to be the one from G, hands (or talons) down.

G: The Devil (Donald Pleasance as “the dark hermit”) 9/10
K: The Devil (uncredited, voice only) 3/10

This just leaves us really with two last sticking points. Both have already been mentioned but here I’m going to go into them in some more detail. The first is the handling of the miracles Jesus performs. In K they’re almost alluded to, with shadows on walls, notes in despatches and the like, while in G they’re made much more of. The best is where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, which isn’t even mentioned in K, but Stevens gives it the full Hollywood treatment and you really feel impressed, awed and even a little frightened at times. Similarly, his curing of the lame is carried out in a very personal way, one-to-one as it were, and the blind man who he makes see is arranged beautifully. Jesus, urged by the sceptical people of Nazareth, who find it hard to credit that the carpenter’s son is in fact the son of God, to cure an old blind man and prove his divinity, refuses. But later he comes back and cures him in private.

It’s a lovely cameo, showing how although he would not be tempted into performing for the crowd, Jesus was still not prepared to let the old blind man suffer for his own principles. In the corner, away from the crowds where nobody can see, he performs a miracle and the old man has his sight back.I feel the miracles are given better weight by Stevens and his way works much better. I guess Ray could have claimed he had not the time for his movie as his rival director had, but the miracles are still in his movie, just not handled so well. Therefore it’s no contest, and G wins this round by a knockout.

G: Portrayal of miracles 10/10 (This first ever top score is awarded due mostly to the awe-inspiring scenes outside the tomb of Lazarus)
K: Portrayal of miracles 5/10

Finally, perhaps one of the most crucial scenes in the film, either of them, the crucifixion of Jesus. While nobody wanted to, or was expecting to see a Mel Gibson-style gorefest, the way K handled it was much more up close and personal, and gives you a real feeling of being involved. You can hear the nails being hammered in, watch the almost workmanlike industry as the Romans bustle here and there, this just another day, another execution for them. You see Jesus’s cross being raised, and hear him talking to the two thieves on either side of him. In G, much of the actual crucifixion, the attaching to the cross and its raising, are viewed from far down the hill, so it’s too impersonal and could really be anyone getting crucified. After a short time the camera does go back up the hill, but it’s grimly unsatisfying and almost seems an afterthought on the part of the director. Badly handled I think, and so K gets the nod here, without question.

G: Crucifixion scene 4/10
K: Crucifixion scene 8/10

Before I total up the score and see who the winner is, there are a few more points I want to raise. Firstly, for such a long and epic film, the opening titles to G are pedestrian and very small, and don’t evoke the kind of drama and majesty that those of its sister movie do, despite the stirring music. The ending too, seems a little rushed, odd considering how long the film is. These two disappointments earn G an automatic deduction of 20 from whatever score it ends up getting.

Secondly, K has a narrator, and it’s Orson Welles. I’m not sure whether I prefer this sort of movie with or without a storyteller, as everyone should already be familiar with the plot anyway, but for securing the services of such a star and using him well I’ll add an extra 10 points to its score.

K also gains an extra 5 points for being the first film in cinematic history to show the face of Jesus onscreen.

And so, the tally. After everything has been added up, here are how the initial scores stand:

The Greatest Story Ever Told: 97
King of Kings: 109

Now for the adjustments: G loses 20 for boring titles, opening and closing, as above, which brings its already losing score down to 77. With 10 points added for Orson Welles and another 5 for getting to the post first as above, K gets a total additional 15 points, bringing its final score to a whopping 124!

So, 124 plays 77. Bit of a knockout there for the King! Even without the adjustments K had it over G by a good 12 points. Now, with the adjustments taken into account, there’s a gap of 47!

And so, with a final score of 124, ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the winner of the contest, the victor of the Battle of the Classic Christs, the first movie to show the face of Jesus on celluloid, give a big hand to

The undisputed heavyweight champion of classic Jesus movies! (Well, of these two, anyway!)

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Originally posted January 26 2014


As some of you may know (some may even care!) I’m something of an aspiring/frustrated writer, and one of my bugbears is bad plotting, lazy writing and a lack of attention to detail. Okay, so that’s three things, but they all come under the one heading: laziness. I’ve seen a good few decent movies (and some very bad ones) suffer from often a very simple slipup in the plot, a case of the writer forgetting or omitting to mention something, or assuming something happens when the viewer cannot reasonably be expected to make that assumption. It happens too often and I wonder it isn’t more widely marked; people in general seem to adopt an “Emperor’s new clothes” approach: if nobody else saw that then I’m not pointing it out. I must be wrong if no-one else saw it. I must just not get it. And so on.

In this series I’ll be looking at some serious plot flaws in movies, good and bad, famous and niche, and pointing out where the writing got sloppy and how, if at all - and in most cases it really did - it affected the overall enjoyment I took from the picture. Also how it impacted on the main storyline, if it did.

The first one I want to look at is one I would not necessarily consider a good film, but in fairness that could be due to the glaring plot holes I’m about to describe. Without these, perhaps the movie would have come across differently to me. But as far as I’m concerned, screen writers are paid enough to check their work, or have it checked, before it hits the cinema, and anyone who lets incongruities of this magnitude through does not really deserve the title or prestige of being a writer.

Some of these holes in the plot I'm pointing out are small, granted, but some are large enough to take the aircraft in the movie down, were they to appear in its fuselage. And all told, there are not two or three, but twelve separate issues I have with this film. Yeah, twelve plot holes, of varying sizes, but they all contribute to a piece of writing that amazingly Roger Ebert described as "an airtight plot"! I respect the guy, but if he thinks this plot is airtight then I wouldn't want him designing any airlocks for my space station, is all I can say...

Movie title: Flightplan
Year: 2005
Genre: Thriller/Drama
Stars: Jodie Foster
Directed by: Robert Schwentke
Written by: Billy Ray

Basic storyline: A woman (Foster) who is an aircraft designer is returning with the body of her husband who has died overseas. With her is her daughter. During the flight her daughter goes missing and Foster must try to convince everyone on the plane that she is not going mad; her daughter was with her, must still be on the aircraft.

Plot Hole One: While Foster’s character, Kyle Pratt sleeps her daughter, Julia, is apparently taken from her. Now, I admit that many of the passengers are probably also asleep, watching the movie, reading or just looking out the windows but surely someone on board that plane sees a strange man move in and take the little girl? And why does she go with him? She doesn’t know him and has surely been brought up better than to go with a stranger? I guess she could be asleep but it still should look suspicious. More, when she goes missing someone should remember seeing her being abducted.

Plot Hole Two: It becomes clear that the terrorists have manipulated Kyle into being the fall guy, but the plan is a little weak. In order for it to work, first of all they have to ensure Julia is onboard, and how can they make sure that happens? One or both of them could have missed the flight, it could have been cancelled, any number of things. But the coffin is on the plane, with the bomb inside. So if all elements of this plan didn’t come together, what were they going to do?

Plot Hole Three: How is it that of all the passengers on the aircraft not ONE of them can remember seeing a woman CARRYING HER CHILD onto the plane? Nobody saw that. And not only that, it’s not that they don’t remember her: they all assert she was not there. How do they know? How did NOBODY see Julia, not even the mouthy children of one of the couples?

Plot Hole Four: We find out that one of the flight attendants is “in on the conspiracy”, fine. But why does the other one, when she hears that Julia was not on the passenger manifest, say she did not see her either, when she must have seen her? Okay, so the facts may be blinding her but what about the evidence of her own eyes? Kyle and her daughter board first, they are the first passengers on the aircraft, which may have been pre-arranged by the "bad" flight attendant in order that nobody sees them getting on, but surely the other flight attendant would remember more clearly the very first passengers on, especially one carrying her daughter?

Plot Hole Five: Not that big but … why does the arab guy who Kyle accuses remark that he always watches his own children, and doesn’t lose them then blame someone else? Everyone up to now has agreed Julia was not on the plane: why is he saying she was but has now gone missing? And what was all this about Kyle saying she saw him looking int o her daughter's room the previous night? Is that just a red herring? Is she close to losing it? It's never returned to so it's just left as a very sloppy loose end, a vehicle for a rather clumsy post-911 blame-the-arabs-for-everything idea.

Plot Hole Six: When the captain checks with the mortuary in Berlin about Kyle's husband why do they assert that Julia died with her father? The director of the morgue is to be arrested so must be in on the plot, but was all his staff too? And are we to assume that when the details were checked it just happened to be him that answered?

Plot Hole Seven: Again, a small one, but where did Kyle get the key she uses to gain access to the aircraft’s emergency systems in order to create a diversion?

Plot Hole Eight: Assuming that they want her to believe that her daughter died with her husband, why is there no coffin with the child in it? Would she have left her daughter back in Berlin?

Plot Hole Nine: Again, a small one but ... Kyle handcuffs Carson, the Air Marshall who turns out to be the bad guy, so how did the "bad" flight attendant free him from his handcuffs so quickly? She didn’t even look for a key. One second she was approaching, next Carson was free.

Plot Hole Ten: Carson said they needed a credible hijacker who knew the plane. Why? What difference did it make? If she ran raving like a lunatic looking for her child without knowing about the layout of the aircraft, Kyle would still be seen as a madwoman. Why was it important she knew about the layout of the plane? And adding to that, she worked on engines. It's not to be assumed she would therefore know the full layout of the aircraft. These things are often assembled in sections, at different work stations. She might only ever have seen engines, not any other part of the fuselage. To imagine she could find her way around the innards of the jet, just because she worked on and designed the engines, is I think pushing it a bit.

Plot Hole Eleven: The attendant runs from the plane which is surrounded by cops and military, and nobody even challenges her, never mind shoots at her or orders her to show her hands? She just runs off into the night? Yes she is eventually captured, but would YOU just run out with all those guns presumably trained on the aircraft?

Plot Hole Twelve: Similarly, after BLOWING UP THE PLANE Kyle emerges from the smoke --- and remember, she’s the prime suspect --- and is not even challenged? Okay, so she has her daughter in her arms but still.

One of the most cloying and aggravating things about this movie are the voices at the end as Kyle walks away with her daughter. People say “I told you there was a little girl” and “She never gave up.” Yeah, well where were they when she was being accused of being insane, and weren’t these the same people who looked at her as if how dare she disrupt their flight, looking for a fictional daughter? Now suddenly they all believe, which is understandable, but now they all believed in the first place? Oh sure.

One final thing, and it is a small niggle but bugs me nevertheless. The movie is called Flightplan. A flightplan is the information an aircraft lodges with the control tower and ATC as to where it’s going and how it’s going to get there. The “flightplan” referred to here seems to be the plan the three people have to get money out of the airline and blame it on Kyle. Not quite the same thing. Annoying, to someone who is an aircraft nut.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Originally posted April 22 2014

There's no doubt that there's a wealth of great movies out there, from the forties right up to today –- classics, cult classics, blockbusters, sequels, prequels and other things ending in “quel”, everything from westerns to sci-fi and war movies to comedies --- but there are an equal amount of terrible movies, movies that should never have been made, movies that are so bad they're good and movies that are so bad they're bad. Movies that make you cringe, squirm and occasionally think about demanding your money back. These are the movies I will be presenting in this new section.

Now, before any knickers are twisted, let me remind you all as ever that this is my own opinion and my view. You may love a film I feature here and want to take me to task for slagging it off. If so, I have three words for you: get over it. I'm just poking fun and am not really debating the merits or failings of these movies. Well, I am, but all in jest. I realise every movie can't be a runaway success and that sometimes budget constraints will lead to the film being, shall we say, less realistic than it could have been? But of course some bad movies are worse than other bad movies, and some have the saving grace of having maybe a good plot or a star, while nothing else about the movie is worth considering. Some, of course, don't even have that. Some have a good idea that suffers from poor writing, poor acting, low-budget effects or poor production or direction. And some don't. In the world of crappy movies, some are naturally crappier than others.

Back when I were a lad (yes this again!) we had no movie channels, no downloadable content, no Netflix or Amazon and no Sky Movies much less video on demand. For a long time we didn't even have video recorders, and the only time you could hope to see a film outside of the cinema was at the weekend on TV, and it would likely be an old one. Occasionally one of the channels might run a series of movies based around a theme, such as sci-fi or horror, and then you'd get a few decent ones, along with some real turkeys. But when videos became a reality and video rental shops began to spring up, we all rushed to them and rented the movies we had either never seen, or hadn't seen for years. This of course led to some truly turdurific choices, many of which have been blotted from my poor young mind so that I don't even remember them. But I do know that more often than not, without the likes of the internet to guide us in our choices, it was a random effort that often failed to pay off.

The movies I'll be looking at here, old and new, will all be ones that have either impressed me with their blatant crappiness, made me laugh at how bad they are (but I still watched them), or ones I think could perhaps have been good if it wasn't for certain drawbacks. Such as editing, production, acting, plot, budget, music and so on. I won't be running total full reviews of them like the movies I usually feature, but will be focussing more on the way they try perhaps and fail to be good movies. Or don't try at all. Sometimes a movie is both at its crappiest and its best when it realises it is a turd and doesn't try to be anything else. Like they say, we're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Some of us, though, are looking down at the human crap floating down towards the drain.



Title: Battle beyond the stars
Year: 1980
Writer: Anne Dyer
Producer: Ed Carlin/ Roger Corman
Genre: Science-fiction
Stars: Richard Thomas as Shad
Robert Vaughn as Gelt
George Peppard as Space Cowboy (um...)
John Saxon as Sador
Darlanne Fluegel as Nanelia

(And a lot of other people who surely now regret it...)

This movie, in case you haven't seen it, is basically a pastiche of two very popular (and far superior) movies: “The Magnificent Seven”, a famous western based on Japanese director Akiro Kurosawa's “Seven Samurai” and the blockbuster “Star Wars”. Although Lucas's space opera had set the world alight and rekindled a new interest in science-fiction movies, this was a double-edged sword, as everyone and his mother thought they could write and produce a sci-fi film. This led to a glut of truly terrible rip-offs such as “Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone”, “Warlords of Atlantis”, “Starcrash”, “Brother from another planet” and “Prisoners of the lost universe”. Even Disney tried to get in on the act, and foisted the godawful “The Black Hole” upon us. Yeah, everyone was at it. But some were better than others and even all of Disney's financial clout and all the resources of its mega-empire couldn't stop that movie from being a turkey. By contrast, that same year would see the result of a movie which would go on to become both a sci-fi and horror classic, and introduce us to a new breed of heroine in Ridley Scott's “Alien”, although in fairness it would also see the underwhelming start of the Star Trek movie franchise with the boring, dull-as-dishwater-and-bearing-little-resemblance-to-the-series “Star Trek: the Motion Picture.”

But once “Star Wars” had opened the floodgates and shown movie studios and execs that sci-fi was not just for kids, that it could play in major cinemas and, more importantly, smash box-office records, there was no stopping them. Which is the only real reason I can see for this movie ever having been released. To call it derivative is being extremely kind. It has a plot ripped right out of “Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven”, down to the casting of one of the actors from that movie --- in virtually the same role --- and the role of another being played by a different actor.

Unkindly, but appropriately and accurately referred to by me and my friends as “John Boy in space”, the movie does indeed star Richard Thomas, better known as squeaky-clean eldest lad John Boy Walton in squeaky-clean American family drama “The Waltons” --- he's never ever going to shake that connection, even if he does a hardcore adult drama (urgh! The image! The image! Get it out of my head!) --- he'll always be John Boy. The wafer-thin plot concerns the efforts of farmer Shad (John Boy I mean Thomas) to recruit a “magnificent seven” sorry “group of fighters who number seven and may or may not be magnificent” to help defend his planet which has come under attack by vicious Mexican bandits, sorry space pirates. The leader of the pirates, a man called Sador (could that name be any darker if they had called him Pure Evil?) possesses a weapon called the Stellar Converter whcih turns planets into stars. No, I don't mean it's a weaponised Simon Cowell! Not those type of stars! Real stars, like, you know, the sun. One can only assume this is not good news for anyone inhabiting the planet, and generally speaking a thing to be avoided at all costs.

Sador wants the planet for its resources and issues his ultimatum: submit to him and his army of space mutants (I'm serious!) or he will return in seven days. Yes, seven days. Exactly. Just enough time for the poor oppressed space farmers to run off and enlist some mercenary cowboys, I mean space heroes, to help them defeat the dread warlord. And of course there will be a rich reward for the saviours of the ... huh? Food you say. Food and shelter. Um. That's it? Who wouldn't jump at the chance?

I love the way the farmers, whose home planet is Akir and so they are all --- Akirans! --- are so meek and submissive that when the few crewing the only battered little weather satellite they have orbiting their planet encounter the space fleet they politely ask if the invaders wouldn't mind identifying themselves. Please? If it's not too much trouble? Annoyed by such unnecessary politeness, and probably (and probably correctly) assuming the crew are gay, Sador destroys their little weather station without a second thought and then goes to quite literally overshadow the lives of the Akirans as his huge ship moves in over the planet. As this happens, someone quite unnecessarily asks “What is it?” What the fuck do you think it is, idiot? It's a big-ass motherfucker of a starship, and you had better just start sucking Sador's co --- Hold on a moment. How did The Batlord get in here and start writing my copy?

He's right though: who could see such a sight and ask that question? It's pretty damn obvious what it is, and if it isn't then the smell coming from all those other farmers standing around beside you and gawping up at the sky like a hick on his first visit to a big city should alert you. There'll be no shortage of fertiliser for the crops this season! Assuming there still is a season.

Sador delivers his ultimatum. He pulls no punches, and speaks as if to children. And slow-witted children at that. “I have come with my forces to conquer you” he tells them. Well firstly there wouldn't be much point in his coming without his forces to conquer them, would there? Damn! I knew I forgot something! And if he had come with his forces, he's hardly likely to be delivering a consignment of toys to the Akiran orphanage, now is he? But just in case the hayseeds haven't got the message he spares a few of them the tedium of remaning in this movie any longer than they need to be and blows them away with lasers. Lucky them: there's another hour and a half of this drivel to go!

Note: we now learn that, despite or even because of his tough-guy image, Sador is actually gay, as he orders “Full thrust to Umateal!” His underlings go scurrying off to wake up Umateal and tell him he's wanted in Sador's bedchamber. Meanwhile, John Boy makes his entrance --- no, that was not a clever and well-thought-out sexual segue! --- and is immediately told in contempt “You are a boy”. He must be getting tired of these references by now. For some reason he is the “only one who can fly Zed's ship”. Or maybe he's the only one who's not too embarrassed to. Look at it! It's a flying pair of breasts! With some sort of penile extensions! The Batlord must love it!

Just a note on the budget here. They may have been able to afford James Horner for the soundtrack (probably told him it was the next Star Wars movie, or else took him into the future and showed him that he would be forced to write the score for “Titanic”, then lied they could save him from this fate if he wrote for them) but they had to steal effects and sounds from other films and series. As the lights come on in Nell, the boobship, the sound is that of the USS Enterprise firing photon torpedoes! Nerd alert! Nerd alert!

Now, a few observations before we get on with this thrilling plot. Firstly, Sador is a flithy stinking smegging stinking flithy liar. The “stellar convertor” cannot possibly work. I know this is a sci-fi movie but look at the first part of that abbreviated genre title. In general, science has to be observed in sf movies, and you cannot turn a planet into a star by any means at all, certainly not by hitting it with a massive laser beam. You can of course turn it into a cinder, which is what will happen to Akir if the dastardly tyrant has his way, but not a star. Not that I think the ex-inhabitants will be bringing this up as a point of order! Still, if you're going to be a megalomaniac, at least be an honest megalomaniac.

Secondly, John Boy's character just appears out of nowhere, and conveniently is the only one who can pilot the tittyship --- which has, of course, a female AI --- other than old Zed, its owner who is of course now too old to pilot --- probably have a double coronary if he even saw it now, in his condition and at his age! I suppose he's been womping swamp rats in his old T-15 back on Tattooine as well, has he? Talk about clumsy plot devices with absolutely no buildup. Actually, let's not. Let's get back to this riveting film. As in, whoever wrote it deserves to be riveted to a crossbeam and left there as a warning to other aspiring directors and screenwriters that you can't just rip off a classic movie --- two classic movies --- actually, almost three --- and call the script your own. Yes, I know they meant to rewrite "The Magnificent Seven", but they didn't do it very well, did they?

So where were we? Oh yeah. John Boy --- sorry Shad (You know what? Let's just call him John Boy, it's easier. And more fun) is on the way off his home planet for the first time ever he says. Eager to welcome him to outer space, the guys Sador left behind attack him but he gets away. When the leader wants to go after him his subordinate reminds him that they were told to watch the planet, and their master does not take kindly to his orders being disobeyed. “Remember Lobo?” he prompts. “He disobeyed orders, now Sador is wearing his left foot!” Quite right too: anyone who can write a song called “Me and you and a dog named Boo” has no right to both feet. Mind you, the B-side was terrific. Anyway, back to the firefight. Note that the ship, Nell, does everything for John Boy but push the fire button, yet he's not even prepared to do that. She locks on target, zooms in, frames the ship nicely and gives him a HUD (Head-Up Display, you dirty beggar!) but he can't push one simple button. “We'll tip our hand!” he complains. What? You mean they'll realise you're armed? “Can we outrun them?” he asks, revealing that, whatever Richard Thomas may say, you can't take the Walton out of him. Still a bloody peacenik. This is going to be some battle. Beyond, you know, the stars.

And there's another thing: the title is complete rubbish. How can you go beyond the stars? The stars are everywhere. The bloody universe is made up of them. There is no beyond the stars. Give me strength! How much longer? Crap! We're only fifteen minutes in! Better haul space-ass then or we'll be here all night. Anyway, preferring to keep both his feet the alien mutant in charge agrees that they head home and allow John Boy to continue on his way. Nell complains that she has been forced to “show my backside to those aliens!” Why is she bitching? She's showing everyone her tits! But I digress. So they arrive eventually at Heph – Hefas --- Huffast --- ah screw it! Vulcan station and announce “This is an emissary from the planet Akir.” No answer. No reason why they should answer. Akir is in the arsehole of nowhere; why would they care if an “emissary” (read, cocky kid who thinks he's Luke Skywalker and so isn't) from there has arrived? John Boy calls the professor's name. Again, nothing. Receiving no answer he does what any experienced pilot does, and waits for permisson to ... oh no, wait, he doesn't. He just goes in anyway.

Things get much sexier as he boards the station. He meets Nanelia, (seriously? Are you kidding me? Leia??) who is unsuccessfully trying to create a robot boyfriend for herself, but drops everything (not literally: this is a family movie) when she sees the striking young man stride confidently towards her. Well, after all, she works here with one old man and a bunch of androids. Beggars can't be choosers and any port in a storm, you know. Clearly fighting back the urge to ask “Aren't you himself from the Waltons?” she loses no time interrogating him, thinking he is an android. Well, she can't be blamed really can she? A robot would act better. When she realises he's human he asks her if she has never seen “an organic form” before, which has to go down as one of the worst chatup lines in a sci-fi movie ever.

Some obvious Star Wars comparisons: young buck who has never been offplanet before is sent to do battle with an evil empire. Well, sort of. On the way he meets a beautiful woman, but she does not turn out to be his sister. Boo. Nor a princess. Double boo. The not-princess tells John Boy Skywalker that her father is not as he was when Zed knew him, which kind of feeds into the whole Obi-Wan Kenobi thing. Oh, and of course the stellar convertor is just the weapon off the Death Star, which even now Darth Vader is looking for. After all, what good is a massive battlestation if it hasn't got its main weapon? What use are any of us without our main weapon? Batlord! I told you to get out of here! Okay, back we go.

John Boy meets the not-princess's father, the one he was sent to find, Professor Hephalump, or whatever, but when Nanelia said he wasn't the man he used to be she wasn't just whistling Dixie! In fact, he's gone right off the deep end (possibly due to having to be a member of the cast of this movie!) and far from helping poor old Shad, tries to matchmake him with his daughter, hoping the two will create a superrace of ... well, I'm not quite sure, but it may have to do with androids. Or maybe Mexicans. Or Mexican androids. Anyway, whatever the case ol' John Boy is not digging the scene, even if Nanelia is hotter than the surface of the sun. He's got a planet to save!

One of the many funny asides comes when the cracked professor tells his robot butler, Saunders, “Prepare the conjugal suite”. The robot goes to do so, but the prof calls him back to say that his daughter will convince the young man to stay. The robot smiles and moves off but Prof Loon calls him back again, to advise him that the defence of Akir is hopeless. About as hopeless as getting away to prepare the fucking conjugal suite like you asked me to, surely thinks Saunders, and makes another valiant attempt to get away, but the prof again calls him back, telling him there will be children here again soon! Great, thinks Saunders: then they can keep you busy while I get on with the tasks I was bloody manufactured to carry out!

John Boy vainly tries to convince Nanelia to let him go, but the not-princess is more interested the more he talks. She says she has never heard of wind, and surely he experiences a desire to let one rip, but thinks better of it. He does however convince her to help him escape, though rather unkindly calls her “Dummy” when she refuses to come with him, preferring to stay with her insane father. Or is he talking to the robot? Hard to say really. After he's gone Nanelia decides maybe that rather than stay on this station surrounded by emotionless androids, she'd rather go after one emotionless android sorry human sorry Akiran, and anyway she'd like to find out what this thing she's heard about is, called sex. But that ship has literally sailed by the time she makes up her mind so she has to take her own little craft.

“No weapons at all?” sneers John Boy condescendingly. Or maybe he's referring to the fact that she rather selfishly abandoned her bipolar father without carrying an armful of laser disruptors, or phaser rifles or whatever. Never mind that she has left her life behind and taken her first step into the big outside world stroke galaxy: why didn't she tool up first? Bloody women! She does mollify him though by saying “I've brought an analyser”, so he at least knows he'll be on for some kinky sex later!

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Nell seems to like it too: “I'd like to exchange data with that thing!” she purrs. Sure you would, you old space whore. Nanelia seems incensed to hear a female voice on John Boy's ship, which, considering she hardly knows him and has not yet admitted to any feelings for him is pretty unbalanced really. Meh, typical female territorialism I guess. They set a rendezvous where they will, you know, rendezvous later. Meanwhile old Sador is not too happy with the “fuck you” message he gets back from the other species he has been threatening (who says space tyrants can't multitask?) and does his best dark scowl. Looks like the folks over at Umateal are off his Christmas card list. Off everyone's Christmas card list, if he has his way.

John Boy reflects that Nanelia “is an interesting form”. Yeah, she has nice tits JB: we noticed. But before you can say “autopilot mode, Nell, I have to use the restroom” they're under attack, with very familiar music (original Battlestar Galactica? Not sure but oh James!) and it sounds like they're being attacked by the creatures from Robotron: “Intruder alert! Stop the humanoid!” Those sound effects are right out of some late seventies videogame for sure! Actually, let's be honest here: they're not being attacked, it's another ship that's under fire, though the pilot, a relaxed and laconic George Peppard, doesn't seem too bothered. He loves it when a plan comes together, but if it doesn't, well to hell with it. He's the Space Cowboy, and this is not his first rodeo. That is the first and last western reference I will make to him.

Disclaimer: The above statement is a lie.

Leaning back in his chair with his hat tilted over his eyes, Han Solo, sorry Space Cowboy puts out a distress call. “Can we help him?” John Boy asks, to which Nell replies caustically “Not without a fight!” Well what did she think he was going to do? Ask the aliens nicely to stop firing? Invite them to a summit where they would try to open a dialogue and settle their differences peacefully? Play some sitar music? Eager to try to put his pacifistic John Boy Walton image behind him (lots of luck with that, guy!) the intrepid Akiran piles into the fight and the alien ship, either turned on or surprised to be attacked by a pair of flying boobs, is taken unawares.

Mind you, you can take the Richard Thomas out of the Waltons but you can't take the Waltons out of Richard Thomas. I know I said something similar earlier. I'm getting bored here: we're only half an hour into a film that still has twice that amount to run! Anyway, he baulks at the idea of attacking his unknown target from behind, and as he squeals “Not from behind, Nell! Not from behind!” if Nanelia can pick up his transmission she'll be rolling her eyes and jettisoning that analyser out into space about now. Nell however takes charge: she doesn't care about hitting from behind and truth to tell has probably taken it up the ass more times than you or I have had hot dinners, so now despite John Boy's outrage that she fired without him they're in the middle of a dogfight.

The Robotron ships, seeing a new player enter, peel off and attack him. They are no match for Nell's tit-lasers though and they're soon toast. Nell tells John Boy “You done fine kid”, which proves that though she may be an artificial intelligence her creator did not apparently see fit to install a grammar chip in her system. Or a respect module, come to think about it. Space Cowboy is happy to be rescued, though to be honest he looked not too worried about dying anyway: looked like as far as he was concerned, either way was good. He is however grateful to his rescuer and offers to show him his collection of old western movies, but realising that this might give the origin of the plot for this movie away John Boy quickly steers the conversation towards the more important idea of recruiting help for his poor defenceless --- and piss poor --- planet.

George ain't too thrilled with the idea; he knows Sador and says they'd have a snowball's chance in Hell of beating him (what if it was a really BIG, FROZEN snowball and the heating was on the fritz that day...? No?), while to underline his point they watch the Umateals pay the price, both for having defied the warlord and having such a stupid name, as their planet is turned into a cinder. Oh yeah, jsut noticed: the dark music used whenever Sador appears is the same used for the approach of V'ger in “Star Trek: the (slow) Motion Picture”! James you devil! Did you write that one too? Oh no you didn't you little tinker! Jerry Goldsmith will not be happy: he's strapping on his Doc Martens as we speak!

John Boy looks surprised to see the stellar converter in action. What? Did he think Sador was bluffing? Oh yeah: evil megalomaniacal overlords always bluff, don't they? Mind you, the effect, such as it is, for the s/c is the worst I've ever seen. A small orange spot appears on the planet's surface, then it's all Photoshopped to total white, and just kind of ... rolls away. Shee! Give me the Death Star every time! Alderaan: now there was a planet that knew how to explode! Always one to see the bright side apparently, Space Cowboy offers John Boy his cargo of weapons, which he just happened to be intending to deliver but now that the delivery point has turned into a point of dust --- and more to the point, there's nobody left to sign for them, for what haulier leaves goods without getting a signature? --- he has no use for them. John Boy is overjoyed, and since the weapons are already paid for there's no fee. Sweet.

The fact that uncounted millions have just lost their lives doesn't seem to bother either of the space adventurers, and one assumes Nell is too busy trying to give Space Cowboy's ship a blowjob to care. Ol' George, having agreed to help train the farmers to use their shiny new guns, invites John Boy to watch “Custer's last stand”, which is appropriate as not only will it be the planet's last stand but is likely to end the same way. Not-princess Nanelia is meanwhile heading towards the rendezvous, probably already bitching about why John Boy hasn't called her and wondering if her bum looks big in the tight leather pants she's wearing (no chance for a girl to change into anything slinkier when escaping from a space station crewed by androids and run by a nutcase!) when she's suddenly attacked by a malevolent coloured cloud, ripped right out of the Star Trek episode “Metamorphosis”, which for some unknown reason seems to give her an orgasm.

Maybe it's a knob-ula? Sorry. She then gets sucked into the maw of a huge ship in a very lesbian fashion and the next time we see her she's suspended from a bar. Yum! Bondage ahoy methinks!

Yeah but this is a family film isn't it? Boo. Get the whip! But instead she's met by aliens, who tell her they saved her from the “zime”, (come on: that's jsut a shortened form of enzyme!) the nasty coloured cloud that was trying to eat her. Meh, would have been her first (and maybe last) sexual experience. The head alien, Cayman, introduces the Kelvin. Not only are these creatures so closely based on the aliens from the Star Trek pilot “The cage”, but the writer couldn't be bothered thinking up a name for them and just took one from a temperature scale. Lucky she didn't call them the Fahrenheits I guess! The aliens tell her they're slavers and will sell her but unfortunately (for them) when she mentions Sador's name they decide to join her in the fight to protect Akir. Guess they don't like the warlord so much.

Note: Much as it pains me, I must admit that the leader of the aliens, with his vaguely fishlike face and reptilian scales, looks like he was partially at least the model for Babylon 5's Drazi. Assuming any of the show's effects guys ever watched this movie. Which I hope they never did; I don't like to think of people suffering. Other than my father. Back to the film. John Boy encounters a flying lampshade and finds himself apparently a guest at a reunion of the five Doctors, who for some unaccountable reason are all wearing white robes and masks, standing around the TARDIS control trying to make it work.

For a man who has never used a weapon John Boy is quick to draw his, blissfully unaware that he has now become a plastic figurine.

He is rather surprised though to find that the five white Doctors --- who tell them they are called Nestor, and appear to be clones, or some sort of gestalt entity (thank you Red Dwarf!) --- all want to get in on the action and will help in the defence of his homeworld. This perhaps provides an argument to the idea that they are an intelligent lifeform.

Those jolly pair Tembo and Kalo meanwhile, left behind to guard the planet (as Tembo says “Where is it gonna go?”) gatecrash a wedding on Akir and abduct the bride. John Boy heads to Mos Eisley, sorry Nascato, where the best, or worst, mercenaries can be found. Living up to its reputation, teh city has a very handy “dial-a-drug” vending machine, which I'm sure some of our members here would be very happy trying out! But that's the only way Nascosto lives up to its rep, as there is only one mercenary left. When John Boy gasps “You kill for pay?” you have to wonder if he quite understands the concept of a mercenary? It's Robert Vaughn, playing almost exactly the same character as he did in “The Magnificent Seven”, just here he's called Gelt instead of Lee.

Somehow, although he can't afford to pay the famous killer, John Boy recruits Gelt who says “Your offer seems very attractive to me”. How? All he can offer is food and shelter. And quite probably a quick death if you're lucky. Your future holds nothing but ashes and cinders. How can that be attractive? But hey, we're not dealing with logic here. This is a guy who tells John Boy that he eats serpents seven days a week. Why not? He's probably ready to die. So off they go, and they are now two. Three, if you include John Boy. Which I would not. At least the writer resisted using the “How many have you got?” idea, which would really have sealed this as the worst ripoff of “Seven Samurai” since, well, since “The Magnificent Seven” I guess. And speaking of western cliches, which we weren't, a tiny ship approaches John Boy's and Nell says that the pilot must not think the galaxy's big enough for the both of them. Oh dear. Turns out it's some big-titted mercenary from a race called the Valkir (really? The Valkir? A warrior woman in, no less, a horned helmet, and that's the best they could do? Why not go the whole hog and call her Helga or Brunhilde? Jesus Christ on the subway at night!) who was testing him and wants to join his army. God help her.

John Boy however is not impressed. She has no weapons and the ship is small, even if it is, as she claims, the fastest in the universe. Which is of course an impossible claim to make, for who has travelled the universe from one end to the other? The galaxy is a big enough boast, but the universe? Seems this woman has some serious issues. But no amount of pouting will get John Boy to change his mind, and of all people/things, Nell accuses him of being harsh! Nell, the AI with a tongue other AIs fear the lash from! Nell, who is easily the most sarcastic, overbearing, snide and self-satisfied computer this side of Orac! She's accusing him of being harsh!

John Boy gathers his forces at the rendezvous point where they all meet each other for milk and cookies. Gelt says he doesn't like anyone behind him, so no doubt Nanelia is glad she ditched that analyser!

Pause for a short discussion on the dialogue in this film: it's so stilted. Discovering Space Cowboy is smoking (when did you ever see Peppard without a cigarette or a cigar, now really? They're as much a part of him as a lollipop is to Kojak! Oh go look it up, young grasshopper! That too!) he asks incredulously “Is that real smoke you're putting in your lungs?” George says it is and he knows it's bad for him, whereupon John Boy opines “Well I don't think you should do it.” No shit Sherlock! As if a man who is far older and more experienced than you is going to give a crap for the opinion of an uptight, morally rigid farmer from Nowheresville, Akir!

Cayman says “I want Sador's head” to which John Boy replies “You're welcome to it.” Like he was going to stop the alien. Not to mention that when John Boy is taken aboard the Nestor ship he doesn't respond with "Who are you?" or "You don't know what you're messing with here!" or even "Take me to your leader!" Nah, he goes all forties gangster, asking "Hey! What's the big idea?" Smooth, John Boy, smooth. Remember, I warned you not to mention it...

These are just a a few of the incredible examples of Ms. Dyer's razor-sharp writing prowess and command of the English language. God help us.

The fleet heads to Akir, and Gelt takes out Tembo and Kalo's little fighter. They agree their only chance is to knock out Sador's stellar converter. In order to fire the weapon the warlord has to lower his forcefield, at which point he's vulnerable for a precious second or so. Original. Here's a thought: with an experienced mercenary, a gestalt alien which seems to have lived forever and a space cowboy who at least knows how to operate weapons, they're given their strategical briefing by Nanelia! Yeah, the girl who up until now has never seen another human being other than her father and whose job has been to repair robots! Where has she suddenly acquired all this tactical knowledge? How come she's the general, preparing her troops?

The annoying Valkyrie with the big tits has invited herself along and John Boy doesn't seem to be about to drive her off. She assures Nanelia that the not-princess will learn all about sex if she sticks with her. Are we on for some girl-on-girl here? Again, let me remind you: family movie. Don't even think about it. Nice cups though! Nanelia asks John Boy to show her the ropes: can we expect bondage? Then she wants him to show her some more of this Earth thing called kissing. Yeah I know it's Akir not Earth; you get the idea. An awkward moment when she advises him “Your torque bar has slipped its groove. You're going to need a new one.” Wow! What a tigress! Another dig at “The Magnificent Seven” as Space Cowboy whiles away the time as they wait with a tune on the harmonica. Could this be more cliched? Gelt responds to the question “Are you a bad man” by explaining that “If you think differently you get called bad.” He leaves out the part where if you kill people for money you also get called bad.

Rather inappropriately I feel, one of the Akirans tries to get a rave going, then we realise it's actually a siren warning of the arrival of Sador, who is surprised and worried to find that poor old Tembo and Kalo have suffered the kind of fate he has planned for John Boy's people. Cowboy betrays his fear and pisses himself. Either that or he's pouring whiskey out of a flask attached to his groin.

Note: I really hope that's whiskey!

The video game, sorry space battle begins. The Nestor seem blissfully unaware that their ship is lit up like a huge luminous lightbulb: might as well have a big target painted on it! Even though the space valkyrie's ship is supposedly the fastest in the universe, she finds that the enormous drag created by her boobs is holding it back. Meanwhile the ground invasion begins and Space Cowboy leads the defence: the sound those hand lasers are making is definitely out of the original Galactica! Gelt is hit and it looks like his ship explodes as he veers away from the battle, while the invasion leader for some odd reason seems to be utilising the services of a well-loved videogame character as he calls out “Sonic! Check all systems!” It seems they have the little blue hedgehog manning an armoured vehicle, as they roll up the sonic tank. Things are not looking good for the defenders.

Step forward the good ol' Kelvin, who --- wait for it --- have no ears. They also seem to be able to destroy the sonic tank just by standing in front of it and spreading their arms. Um. This drains their energy though, and they may have made the ultimate sacrifice. Kind of like anyone who's watching this movie. After they've pushed the invaders back, for now, the valkyrie tells John Boy “You've never seen a valkyrie go down”, which surely must give him ideas? Gelt pops his clogs, bringing his role full circle with that of Lee in the western. John Boy orders that a meal be prepared and buried with him. That was the deal, he says: a meal and a place to hide. Well, it was food and shelter but come on: how literal and pedantic are you being here, man? What's the point of that? Couldn't your people be better employed in the defence of your planet than cooking a meal for a dead man?

The Nestor have arranged to have one of their kind captured by Sador. “What one sees,” they tell John Boy, “we all see.” But have they considered perhaps that what one feels they all feel? As the “facet” of their personality/commune/whatever the fuck it is these guys are faces torture at the hands of the tyrant he is asked the size and strength of the Akirans' fleet. “That would give you an unfair advantage”, he says matter-of-factly. Duh! When Sador informs him that he has someone expert at inflicting pain, the Nestor replies “It is good to have skills”. Well it doesn't matter anyway as once his arm is sliced off he dies, and for some reason Sador --- who it appears only had one arm --- has it grafted onto him. Bad move!

The arm is part of the Nestor, even if that one is dead, and the other Nestor can control it. Oh come on! I know it's silly and implausible but is it any moreso than the rest of this film? So they try to get him to cut his throat (how do they know he has a sword in his belt? Guess the other one --- the one now dead --- saw it. Maybe) but his torturer manages to wrest the weapon from his grasp and then cut off the offending arm. Hey, if thine arm offends thee!

The mood of the film now takes a serious downer. “We have failed”, moans the Nestor. “We're finished!” snaps John Boy. Only Big Tits is still ready to fight. “The Valkyrie never give up!” she declares. “Never!” Whether the white guys got a boner (do the Nestor get boners? And if they do, do they all get it at the same time? Enquiring and dirty minds need to know!) or what, they suddenly cheer up and head to their ship to renew the fight. John Boy is still moody though, but when Nanelia says “I want to go up there with you” he must surely think “I want to go up there!” She tells him sweetly “I could help you up there” and John Boy wonders has she a jar of Vaseline with her? Either way, the two lovers set off in Nell, and it's borrowed sound effects and crappy footage time again as someone pops twenty cents in the machine and the game begins again.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018