Challenge to White Fang, aka Il Ritorno di Zanna Bianca (Italy/France/West Germany, 1974)

So what if Italian goremeister Lucio Fulci wanted to make a hero dog movie starring Django? These are the kinds of questions I like to ask. Move along people; there's nothing to see here!

Challenge to White Fang is the sequel to Fulci's original 1973 Zanna Bianca. And while I haven't seen that film, I think I can take a pretty good stab at what it's about, since Challenge seems to be that kind of sequel that laboriously reassembles all of the elements of the original and then starts over again at square one. We start with the Eskimo family to whom the wolf dog White Fang belongs being massacred by the gang of a corrupt trader named Forth (John Steiner). Soon thereafter, an old prospector named Tarwater (Harry Carey Jr.) happens to come sledding by and takes White Fang back to his mining camp in the Klondike, where the dog bonds with his young grandson Bill (Renato Cestie).

Back in town, we also meet Sister Evangelina, who is played by famed Italian sexpot Virna Lisi in a reprise of her role from the previous film. Evangelina recognizes Forth, who has made himself a powerful fixture in the town, as the villain from the first film, Beauty Smith, and calls in our hero, Jason Scott, played by old Blue Eyes himself, Franco Nero. Scott is both a famed adventurer and White Fang's erstwhile hagiographer, a sometimes companion to the animal who chronicles its written adventures for an adoring public. Together with his manly trapper pal Kurt Jansen (Raimund Harmstorf), Scott determines to get to the bottom of just what Smith is up to in the town, which, it turns out, is no good. Smith is entering into usurious contracts with the prospectors, taking a lions share of their take in exchange for insufficient rations and supplies, with lost lives the result.

Effete and vicious, Steiner's Beauty Smith strikes one as an especially nasty villain within the nominally family friendly context of Challenge to White Fang, and the performance works nicely against elements like Carlo Rustichelli's somewhat chirpy score and the myriad tear jerking "boy and his dog" moments to rescue the film from the vanilla wasteland. It should also be said that, while there is not a torn viscera in sight, Fulci's darker gifts are not completely wasted, as quite a lot of attention is paid to grim frontier hardship. Over the course of the film, we get prospectors harrowingly freezing to death in the open, two suicides by shotgun, and an emergency amputation. Elsewhere, Fulci's direction, not surprisingly, is professional but not overreaching, leaving the film neither particularly beautiful or homely. The action sequences -- a climactic sled race, in particular -- are handled thrillingly.

As for White Fang himself, for those of us who have read about the stunning natural charisma of an animal actor like Rin Tin Tin -- or witnessed it in the case of a Pedro or Moti -- he doesn't impress all that much, coming off more as the mascot of the film than its star, which is clearly Nero. True, the dog does expose a card cheat in one scene, which is a pretty neat trick. He also at one point defends young Bill from an attacking eagle and is blinded in the process, which proves that not even a dog's eyes are safe from Fulci's abiding obsessions.

But the most egregious eye violence that Fulci wants to do to his audience in this case is to its tear ducts, as evidenced by a last minute Old Yeller moment at Challenge to White Fang's conclusion. Not to deny that putting the director in a box in this manner is somewhat juvenile and reductive, but it's difficult to shake, watching such a moment, that this was a film made in the wake of Lizard in a Woman's Skin and, what is to my mind Fulci's masterpiece, Don't Torture a Duckling. Granted, there is much of well paced, rousing entertainment on display throughout the film, but there are certainly moments during which less sentimental viewers might prefer the splinter.

Sounds

I missed a lot of music news during my recent travails, and it's now all trickling back in like a delayed reward. All the more reason to be thankful for having a brain.

Savages, Silence Yourself. It's easy to imagine the members of Savages gathered, cell-like, subjecting the gatecrashing releases of the post-punk era -- Wire's Pink Flag, Gang of Four's Entertainment! -- to rigorous interrogation, breaking them down to their basic DNA for more efficient assimilation into their fearsomely disciplined sound. They may not be delivering anything strictly new here, but they certainly provide a thrilling recreation of the expressionistic, Kabuki shadowed birth agonies of the new as experienced through those aforementioned seminal discs all those years ago. An exhilirating release.



The Knife, Shaking the Habitual. I hope that, as long as I love them, Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer remain eccentric and provocative. On the duo's desperately awaited follow-up to Silent Shout, they once again utilize classic pop sounds, but in the service of something more disarmingly intimate and troubled than the pop spectrum normally accommodates.

 

Wire, Change Becomes Us. And finally, speaking of Wire, their latest compiles long overdue studio versions of songs composed during the waning days of their first incarnation, some of which were included on their great 1981 live album for Rough Trade, Document and Eyewitness. This cherry picking was probably the best strategy for hitting the high bar set by the band's previous Red Barked Tree, with the result that these elder statesmen somewhat improbably continue to rage from strength to strength as they continue into their fourth decade.


Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some listening to do.

Friday's best pop song ever

Other plans.

So last Tuesday I went into the hospital to have a large mass removed from the right side of my brain, and then spent a week in the ICU after some complications in recovery, with the result that I am presently enjoying my first full day of recovering at home.

The good part of this is that -- thanks to a hideously blackened eye, shaved head, and jagged row of metal staples across my cranium -- I now look like a scary Russian convict; the type of person that a bookish sort like myself would normally shy away from. I also have a small section of scalp that goes in when pressed like a hidden key to a secret cave entrance.

The bad part is is that the words are still swimming in my head. Composing a text message of any complexity on an iPhone is the closest thing to Hell that Bruno Mattei could envision. This means it will be a bit before I get back to writing again at full steam.

This is a shame, really, because I would really have liked to dedicate no small amount of written tribute to the passing of Ray Harryhausen, a childhood idol of mine. So obsessed was I with the man that my mother to this very day sends me clippings about him whenever they turn up in the local paper -- no doubt fueled by memories of having waited in a long line with me to get into the matinee opening of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. This Harryhausen fandom of mine thrived during the days before one could buy garage kits or vinyl figures of the Ymir to fuel it, and was instead dependent on youthful reading, watching and research; In this regard, his long awaited Film Fantasy Scrapbook was a lifeline.

Like a lot of kids who idolized Harryhausen, I entertained the idea of doing what he did, leading to a fairly prolific series of modeling clay based epics shot in a makeshift basement studio. This enthusiasm was later washed away by my all consuming desire to play bass in a punk rock band. Fortunately, I found my way back to film in one way or another and am today able to say thanks for the memories.

And memories, under the present circumstances, are indeed something to be thankful for. Not to mention simply having a functioning -- if presently a bit addled -- brain in which to house them. I have a long stretch of road back to full recovery ahead, but getting back to 4DK is primary in my mind. Watch this space.

Friday's best pop song ever

Out of the Darkness (Thailand, 1971)

Out of the Darkness’ status as Thailand’s first science fiction film places it more within its own special realm of obscurity than one of notoriety. For the reason one need only consider the low profile of Thailand -- a country whose taste for film fantasy strays more toward the mythological and supernatural -- as a producer of cinematic sci-fi. The fact that we have to drag in outliers like Yod Manut Computer and Giant and Jumbo A to pad the list speaks volumes.

But what makes Out of the Darkness interesting, as a representative of an under-loved genre within its home market, is the measures that its first time director, Prince Chatrichalem Yukol, took to compensate for that fact. Part of a long tradition of Thai royals who dedicated themselves to the practice of filmmaking, Yukol, who would go on to helm such event pictures as 2001’s The Legend of Suriyothai, claims to have conceived of the project as something of a lark. Nonetheless, his ambitions to play with genre didn’t prevent him from trying to sooth potentially squeamish audiences with a dose of the familiar. As a result, Out of the Darkness, while still clearly a science fiction film, is notable for being a desperately crowd pleasing example of same, amiably folding into its mix of space invasion tropes elements of such popular Thai cinema staples as youth drama, rural action, and musical comedy.

The film sees a very early appearance by Yukol’s favored leading man, Sorapong Chatree, who would go on to Thai superstardom in the late 70s and 80s -- much of it in films that would later, thanks to the vagaries of international film rights, put his acting in the service of nonsensical Godfrey Ho ninja movies. Here Chatree plays Sek, the assistant to an astronomer named Professor Thongchai. When the two men observe the fall to Earth of an oddly behaving meteor, they set off toward the coast to investigate. Along the way, they come upon a mine that is under siege by a gang of bandits who are attempting to rob it. After a protracted gun battle laden with explosions, Sek and Thongchai help drive the gang off, and are rewarded by the mine’s owner, Luang Kosit, with an invitation to his home.

Back at the home we meet Kosit’s spirited young daughter, Chonlada, who’s entertaining a group of her teenage friends from the city with a weekend of wholesome go-go dancing. Chonlada tells the astronomers that she witnessed the fall of the meteor, and offers, along with her friends, to take them by boat to the site, an island called Ra Gam that’s home to a tribe called the Sea Clan. Meanwhile, sparks of attraction between Sek and Chonlada create tensions with certain of the girl’s male cohorts that will later manifest themselves in inconvenient ways.

After a boat ride filled with song and youthful mirth, the gang arrives on Ra Gam only to find the Sea Clan’s village eerily deserted. Deserted, that is, except for the freshly flayed skeletons of the villagers that are stacked like logs inside every hut. The cause for this, it turns out, is a shambling, tentacled heap with a green streetlight for a face that turns its victims into laser-eyed zombies who in turn blast away at every human within radius. The end sum of this game is that all of the Sea Clan has been annihilated except for the Elder’s daughter, Sarai, whom the gang takes back to the mainland with them. Once ensconced back in Chonlada’s home, the group can only pray that the beast does not find its way to shore. But, of course, it’s not long before it makes land and starts slaughtering necking couples on the beach.

Out of the Darkness does not enjoy a high reputation. Chatrichalem Yukol himself has described it as “terrible”. Yet it deserves credit for being, despite the cultural hurdles it faced, a surprisingly enjoyable example of old school creature feature cheesiness. Yukol studied film in Los Angeles, alongside future luminaries like Francis Ford Coppola, and brought to the picture a drive-in sensibility that today makes it companionable to such American classics of 1960s sock hop sci-fi as The Horror of Party Beach and Sting of Death. (It also calls to mind the British Island of Terror, and features some very Hammer-esque -- and possibly needle dropped -- string swirls on its soundtrack.) But, while it is Western in its storytelling rhythms, it equally pays tribute to Thai cinema’s traditionally more leisurely approach to pacing. This means that what seems like it should be an 80 minute B movie gets telescoped into something more on the temporal scale of a Lord of the Rings feature. Certain scenes, such as a climactic cat and mouse game between the creature and the kids that takes place in a subterranean cave, extend to the point of seeming like they’re eating your future before your eyes.

But at the same time, that cave scene looks great, thanks to Yukol’s very Bava-esque use of lighting on some fun and expressionistically artificial looking sets. He also scores high with the scenes of the ravaged Sea Clan village, which, with their minimal music and windswept visuals, convey a delicious, arid chill. It is such things that mark Yukol, whatever his later achievements in hard hitting social dramas and big budget prestige pictures may be, as a true genre fan, an honorary monster kid. And when someone like that is put in charge of a picture like Out of the Darkness, it’s hard for me to hate it.

Friday's best pop song ever

Being Clothilde

I’m back on the French pop beat over at Teleport City, this time telling the somewhat odd story of one Elisabeth Beauvais, who would enter the Yeh Yeh Girl pantheon as Clothilde. Please check it out if you’re so inclined.

Rollin' it over

I’m a little overtaken by life’s vicissitudes at the moment, so what better time for that most lazy refuge of blocked bloggers everywhere: The links post! This time we have the benefit of a few of the usual suspects turning up in some unusual places, as well as -- even better -- new suspects! Prepare to offer them all your severest scrutiny.

Our friends over at The Cultural Gutter continue to feature a series of guest posts from the cream of the crop of the online inteligencia. The latest, The Good Outnumber You: A Look at Heroism in Storytelling is by Miguel Rodriguez, who is not only golden-tongued as the host of the peerless Monster Island Resort Podcast, but also, as this piece proves, the wielder of a mighty virtual pen as well.

Over at The Alcohol Professor, Keith from Teleport City holds forth about another of his abiding passions in a piece called George Dickel: The Other Tennessee Whisk(e)y. That Keith knows his whisky is something my own poor, pummeled liver can well attest to, and if your thirsts likewise range in that direction, I’d suggest you take heed.

Also warranting heed is my good friend Andrew Nahem’s (#lowdudgeon) compilation of his not-to-be-missed Tonight on MADMEN Tweets – to which all I can say is, “Really! A thing like that!”

Lastly, and also limning the Twitter-verse, the official site of The Drive-In Mob now features an archive of our past Tweetalongs, where you can monitor our chatter over such cinematic touchstones as The Deadly Spawn and The Green Slime. Bring your appetite!

That should hopefully keep you all pleasantly occupied while I laboriously gather my thoughts for the next extrusion. Of course, I beg you to please keep in mind that, as great as these other writers and sites may be, none of them knows how to please you quite the way I do.

Friday's best pop song ever

Teleport City lives

The resurrection of Teleport City at its new location is proceeding at an ever increasing pace, with many of our old/"classic" reviews reappearing -- often with new and better screen captures -- in just the past week. Among those are a few of mine that some of you have been asking about, such as Toofan, The Killing of Satan, Santo vs. Blue Demon in Atlantis, Shiva Ka Insaaf, and Ghost With Hole, to name just a few. A special thank you goes to Keith for all of the work he’s put in on this project, an expense of time and effort only partially mitigated by the opportunity it’s afforded him to make screen caps of a shirtless Brad Harris.

Madam X (India, 1994)

At some point in her career it was determined that Rekha, one of Bollywood’s more elegant and doll-like heroines, was the ideal centerpiece for outrageously gay female driven action vehicles. This is a good thing, because it gave us Khoon Bhari Maang, a film in which Rekha became a supermodel in order to get revenge against the men who threw her face first into a crocodile. Rekha honestly doesn’t do much for me in traditional leading lady roles, but I just love her in these pictures, where all she has to do is declaim dialog while modeling insane outfits and making crazy eyes.

Take her titular character in Madam X, for instance, a clotheshorse super villain who comes off like Mogambo by way of Lady Gaga. And while a gender reversed version of Mr. India would be a mighty fine idea on its own, Madam X goes several better by giving us a gender reversed version of Don. This is India after all, where, according to the movies, everyone is made in pairs, even if they don’t often realize it until it becomes narratively advantageous. Yes, you can rest assured that, before Madam X has exhausted itself, you will see Rekha vs. Rekha action accomplished via awkwardly composed process shots. And your life will be changed (though perhaps not as much as by the dueling Jyothi Laxmis in James Bond 777).

When we meet Madam X, she is in the process of stealing literally all of the gold, because that seems to be her thing. She has been at this racket long enough to become an obsession on the part of police Inspector Vijay (Mohsin Khan), who has dedicated himself to her case to the extent of neglecting his young marriage to Nita (Kiran Juneja). Vijay hopes to unravel the wider criminal network of which Madam X is a part, which we see also includes a cross dressing Shakti Kapoor. While perhaps not as larcenous, the Madam could also be found guilty of empire building in her closet; No matter how frequent her costume changes, you soon realize that you will never see every cape, cowl, turban, epaulette or veil in her wardrobe.

For Vijay, the claws really come out when Nita steps between him and a bullet Madam X had intended for him, dying as a result. A spectacular kung fu battle comprised of mostly leaping and quick cuts follows, and Vijay comes out the better after, I think, getting Madam X’s hair wet. We next see that Vijay has got Madam chained up in some remote spot, and that she is howling and caterwauling like a Pakistani she beast. Now, this is where most movies would “go dark”, but Madam X is not in touch enough with its own debased heart for that, so Vijay just hits the streets in hope of finding a means of extracting his pronouncedly uncooperative prisoner's secrets. He finds it when he stumbles upon Sonu (Rekha again!), a carefree juice wallah who happens to look exactly like Madam X.

Anyone who has seen either version of Don knows what follows from this point. Sonu’s position as caretaker of a crippled younger brother makes her especially susceptible to the promise of financial reward that Vijay offers, even though she is only qualified for the treacherous undercover mission by dint of pluck. Then comes the rigorous training and the mission itself, plagued by constant threat of exposure. And then, of course, because Sonu and Vijay are proximate humans of opposite genders in a Bollywood movie, they fall in love. This leads to a Dali-esque interlude during which Vijay plays a grand piano by a lakeside while Rekha dances around in one of her gigantic outfits.

There are reasons that the 90s weren’t known as the age of restraint in Bollywood, and Madam X demonstrates this by including more than a few scenes that look like they were lit by shining a klieg light at a disco ball, along with an overabundance of music cues that sound like the intro to “Beat It”. And, really, all of that is somehow appropriate. After all, you can’t say it undermines what would otherwise be a subtle character study. Madam X, like its furiously pantomiming star, should be sheathed in loud, glittery raiments like the queen it is. This is especially true given that English subtitles for it are hard to come by, and it’s actually helpful to have it furiously waving its arms at you the whole while. Not that subs wouldn’t be nice, mind you; From what I can see the dialog has to be priceless.