THE GIRL FROM S.I.N. (1966)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

I’ve seen none of the other films directed or photographed by C. Davis Smith, all of which seem to be low-budget exploitation works. But my re-watch of GIRL FROM SIN convinces me that he’s one of the few toilers in the grindhouse trade who was able to have fun with his material.

Most softcore features of the fiftes and sixties are, to use Somerset Maugham’s term, such “monuments to the obvious” that even the ones that have a grim attitude tend to seem laughable to modern audiences. In contrast, when grindhouse filmmakers shot for comedy, many of these prove tiresome retreads of old burlesque routines.

Not GIRL FROM S.I.N., both directed and co-written by Smith. The title references the U.N.C.L.E. TV shows of the period, which in turn evolved from the mega-success of the James Bond movie franchise. Such superspy antics depend on lots of expensive sets, stunts and costumes. Thus it was fairly audacious for Davis to come up with a micro-budgeted spy spoof, shot mostly in dingy apartments and using a narrator voiceover to avoid the expense of a soundtrack. Of course, Davis certainly knew that the only real effects desired by the “raincoat crowd” was lots of naked female flesh and simulated sex scenes. Still, the director does a good job of emulating the same tongue-in-cheek absurdity that made the two U.N.C.L.E. shows memorable.

GIRL opens with its titular seductress, Poontang Plenty (Joyanna, who only made one other film) doing what comes naturally with a nameless victim. She spends a lot of time massaging or pouring liquor on the guy’s feet, perhaps to distract from two facts: that she never lets the action get hotter than kissing, and that she remains clad the whole time, albeit in lingerie. Finally, she kills the guy with two long needles—did they know about acupuucture in 1966?-- and the movie starts.

Poontang proceeds to the headquarters of S.I.N., which happens to be one of the aforementioned apartments. There she meets her boss Doctor Sexus, his aide Bigjob, and one new recruit, “Silk Suit,” the “man from M.A.F.I.A.” The Mafioso is just there as a viewpoint character through which the omnipresent narrator can help explain the rules of

the game. The sinful spies are out to steal a formula for invisibility pills, produced by a scientist named Professor Drake, currently carrying on his experiments in the same apartment building.

Why did Drake and his cute blonde assistant Karen (Mary O’Day) come to an apartmet building for the experiments? Well, it seems Karen has a photographer-boyfriend, Sam, whose studio is the same building. Having Drake’s makeshift lab next door to the studio serves two equally absurd purposes: making sure that Sam can come to the rescue if necessary (no cops or federal agents needed here), and enabling Karen to “keep an eye”on Sam, who photographs a lot of nude women for advertisements—presumably in Playboy Magazine. We also get to see Sam hard at work, taking pictures of a nude woman drinking milk. (Another fetish heard from?)

While sitting around deciding what to do next, Sexus shows off Poontang’s abilities to their new recruit, as she both kayos Silk Suit with karate and beats up the towering Bigjob. But that’s the last time this Pussy Galore wannabe uses martial arts. Her next mission is to get a job with Sam, and though she still doesn’t take off her clothes, she does somehow make a wax impression of the keyhole to the lock next door, so that Silk Suit and Bigjob can invade the lab with no fuss.

However, in the film’s comic highlight, one of the experimental mice, newly made invisible, gets loose in the lab. The deadpan narration tells us that though Karen isn’t afraid of mice she can see, she’s terrified of invisible vermin. So she takes a pull so that the mouse can’t see her. Logical, yes? Also fortunate, since Karen goes invisible when Bigjob and Silk Suit invade the lab. Though they clobber Drake, Karen repels the spies with invisible punches and kicks until they flee without their prize.

That’s probably all I need say of the plot—and yes, it is a real plot, farcical though it may be—to convey the pleasures of S.I.N. Poontang does get two more lovemaking scenes, and she even takes off her bra for a second of two—though her funny attempt to seduce and/or rape Drake makes up for the lack of tit-action. Mary O’Day pretty much carries the burdern for the film’s T&A appeal, though during a lengthy (and unconvincing) torture sequence, she’s allowed to keep her bra on. There’s a big fight between good guys and bad spies at the end, which Davis tries to make exciting with lots of zooming close-ups. The film simply ends with Poontang dying of knife-wounds, with no attempt at a final wrap-up. I doubt that this film gave the raincoat crowd the kind of sin they really wanted, but for modern voyeurs on the hunt for things “so bad they’re good,” this GIRL has the goods.

AVH: ALIEN VS. HUNTER (2007)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

AVH is yet another crappy mockbuster from The Asylum, this time imitating the two ALIEN VS. PREDATOR films, the latter of which appeared the same year as this direct-to-video cheeseball. To be sure, neither of the AVP films were all that distinguished, either. But at least there was some basic appeal of crossing over two aliens, each of whom had starred in their own individual franchise-serials. Here, the Asylum satisfies the title by offering two aliens who descend to Earth to fight one another, while catching innocent humans in the middle. One E.T. is "the Alien" of the title, who's nothing but a big spider, while "the Hunter" is just a clone of the original Predator-- different armor of course, but a strong physical resemblance to the what the Predators look like beneath their armor, as well as having the same camouflage power.

Like many Asylum offerings, this one takes place in an unremarkable section of Californian forest, and the victimized humans occupy an out-of-the-way town. The viewpoint character is reporter Lee (William Katt, looking a long way from THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO), and while a lot of junk-films could at least put across some basic conflict for his character, we only know that he's retreated to the small town because he's burned out on writing for some reason. He and a young woman witness a UFO crash to Earth and wreck a farmhouse, and they gather other locals to warn them of the danger-- at least once the others are convinced of the aliens' reality. Lee advocates the group's seeking out a local survivalist, Valentine, because he has a stock of weapons, and Lee and Valentine have bad blood, yada yada yada. Amid all the usual dithering the humans eventually figure out that one E.T. is hunting the other for sport, but even the heavy artillery of Valentine and his friends can't overcome alien powers and tech, so the film can't even handle the "men's adventure magazine" vibe put across by the original PREDATOR. From start to finish, it's a dull "humans-run-from-monsters" tale, and the only actor who comes off a little better than average is lead actress Deedee Pfeiffer, playing a woman who's apparently been lusting after Lee for ten years but only makes her move on him when the two of them are in deadly danger.

In the ALIEN/PREDATOR films, both E.T.s are the stars of the show, despite being opposed to one another. But the spider is not a co-equal member of the story, which devotes most of its narrative to the Predator rip-off, thus making "the Hunter" the star of this dismal show.

WRATH OF THE TITANS (2012)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, metaphysical*

As is most often the case in Hollywood, the success of a given film—in this case 2010’s CLASH OF THE TITANS—begets sequels and derivatives capable of imitating only the simplest aspects of the thing imitated.

Louis Letterier’s CLASH had its own textual problems. Nevertheless, though it was riffing on the 1981 Ray Harryhausen film, it put forth a reasonably compelling story concerning the nature of the ancient Greeks’ belief in their gods, and managed to explicate the complicated interrelations of the family of the gods, their foes the Titans, and the mortals caught between their struggles.

In contrast to this, the sequel WRATH OF THE TITANS left me with one dominant impression: it knows how to blow stuff up real good.

The most mythic aspect of Letterier’s CLASH—that of the hero Perseus’ protection by and marriage to Io—is abandoned; Io is dead and gone at the time the film begins. In substitute Perseus will be linked up with his original bride from the Greek myth, Andromeda, whom he rescued in CLASH but did not marry. However, Andromeda plays so minor a role in the film that this aspect of Perseus’ adventures hardly matter.

Once more, the plot concerns the plot of vengeful death-god Hades to take over the reign of heaven and earth from his brother Zeus, in part by the device of releasing the long-imprisoned Titans and causing the usual chaos on Earth. In this endeavor Hades is aided by a traitor-god from Olympus, Ares the God of War. However, director Jonathan Leibesman devotes no time as to why Ares turns on his brethren. More time for explosions that way.

Similarly, though Sam Worthington once more essays the role of Perseus, it’s a Perseus who has no time for philosophical debates as to whether or not mortals owe anything to the gods, who, as Shakespeare more or less said, use them for their sport. Perseus gathers an army and proceeds to fight against the minions of Hades until he beats him. The End.

GODZILLA VS. KONG (2021)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, sociological*

As I write this, GODZILLA VS. KONG—from now on, GVK—stands as the first post-Covid theatrical release to strike gold with assorted audiences. In contrast, WONDER WOMAN 84 came out earlier but has yet to break even, possibly in part due to appearing before the U.S. vaccine rollout. Nevertheless, the contrast does suggest that, despite the public’s ongoing thirst to see extravagant violence and high-budget FX, not all such kinetic pleasures are automatically equal.

In my review of GODZILLA KING OF THEMONSTERS, the previous film in this “Monsterverse” series, I wondered whether or not the forthcoming Kong-Godzilla matchup would be able to equal KING’s Brobdingnagian battles. I would now rate GVK at the top of the heap in terms of its execution of “giant monster fights,” leaving in the dust even the best of the “men in suits” efforts that gave rise to the Godzilla franchise. Yet it seems as though the producers were so focused on giving the public the ultimate Kong-Godzilla match—easily outstripping the original template of KING KONG VS. GODZILLA—that their film managed to ignore almost every other aspect of potential entertainment.

I could tick off at least a dozen major problems with the GVK script, ranging from simple lack of development (mostly in terms of its characters) to outright plot holes. The opening setup practically telegraphs at least one part of the conclusion. Five years have passed since Godzilla demonstrated his sovereignty over all the other giant monsters (conveniently offstage for this film), and humankind has more or less become accustomed to the idea that the “Titans,” as they’re called, are more like guardians of the planet than destructive behemoths. Then Godzilla inexplicably attacks a facility owned by Apex, a previously seen, morally dubious corporation. Did anyone in the theater doubt for a moment that Godzilla attacked Apex because its CEO Walter Simmons was up to something shady? But this possibility never occurs to the majority of the human inhabitants in the Monsterverse.

Two principal plotlines evolve from Godzilla’s attack. One is that Simmons approaches Nathan Lind, a whiz-kid scientist who knows a lot about the subterranean domain from which all of Earth’s colossal creatures arose, and convinces Lind to head an journey to the center of the Hollow Earth, to harvest some Godzilla-slaying super-power. But Lind needs a guide, and the only one who’s been there before, albeit decades ago, is the anthropoid resident of Skull Island. Further, Kong’s services can only be obtained with the help of Ilene Andrews, the woman who’s in charge of keeping Kong safe on the island, where the other “apex predator” Godzilla can’t sense him. Thus, Ilene, Lind and Ilene’s adopted daughter (the last survivor of the Skull Island tribe) are off to do Simmons’ bidding. Meanwhile, on the B-side, three forgettable characters, a conspiracy theorist and two high-schoolers, seek to get to the bottom of Apex (mixed metaphor notwithstanding).

I’m minimizing the characters and their significance to the overall plot because I feel the script—the product of five credited writers—treats all the human beings as bare functions of the plot. One must admit, of course, that deep characterization is not usually found in any giant monster films. Still, a lot of GVK’s problems could have been finessed, if not entirely fixed, with a little more attention to verisimilitude.

Yet, as if to echo Northrop Frye’s opposition between the literary properties of myth and verisimilitude, GVK fails at verisimilitude but excels in forging a new myth for both Kong and Godzilla. Such a myth is not founded in rationality. If it were, the myth would be undermined by the dissonance between (a) the vaguely New Age-y concept of giant monsters who are planetary guardians, and (2) the picture of them as brute animals ruled by the need to observe dominance rituals. Myth, however, can unify concepts that would ordinarily be distinct from one another.

In my review of KING KONG VS. GODZILLA, I noted that Kong’s original appearance was a romantic, “backward-looking” elegy to prehistoric life (or human ideas about it), while Godzilla heralded an apocalyptic future engendered by humankind’s tampering with the forces of nature. Nathan Lind’s discoveries in the Hollow Earth indicate an ancient enmity between the species of Godzilla and that of Kong, meaning that they are animals governed by a competitive nature. Yet it is that very nature makes them fit to oppose threats to the planet from outside (King Ghidorah) and inside (the Skullcrawlers). Between these two representatives of “nature red in tooth and claw” stands human culture. The “good humans” want to forge a separate peace between Kong and Godzilla, while a “bad human” like Simmons wants to get rid of Earth’s protectors so that he can be the new apex predator. Simmons never gets any lines that make him come alive as a character—he always seems like a road-company Tony Stark—but one can imagine him being in sympathy with Lt. Col. Packard of SKULL ISLAND, when the latter says he’s going to show Kong “that man is king.”

Of the two clashing Titans, Kong is closer to humanity, so he gets all the good character-moments. The viewer fears for his well-being when Lind’s expedition takes him into direct conflict with his ancient enemy, or when he braves the dangers of the Hollow Earth. Kong eventually finds a place in the underworld that may have once been the dwelling place of his lost people. And even though the idea of an intelligent Kong-people fails to track on any logical level, the film gets across a sense of tragic glory when Kong seats himself on a sort of giant throne and brandishes an ersatz “sceptre.”

If Kong is the furry “id” that eventually gives rise to the “superego” of homo sapiens, Godzilla embodies an even older substrate: the relentless reptile brain, focused only upon attacking everything in his path. The Godzilla of 1954 took his royal title from his cinematic predecessor, but he’s held the crown thanks to his indefatigable persistence, in marked contrast to most retellings of Kong, wherein the big monkey perishes at the hands of the cruel modern world. GVK does its best to upgrade Kong for his tourney with the Big G, giving the former king a size-upgrade and a weapon to offset Godzilla’s atomic fire—and Godzilla still comes out as the Biggest Badass on the Big Blue Marble. Even Simmons anticipates Godzilla’s superiority. He certainly doesn’t attempt to cook up a “MechaKong” for his mechanical minion! Yet, even though Simmons and Godzilla share a core ruthlessness, the will of the good humans brings about a rapprochement between the long-time enemies, as they’re forced to make a common cause against Mechagodzilla.

Putting across a new version of two superlative cinematic myths is no easy thing. Certainly, having good models doesn’t keep moviemakers from making really bad iterations of the originals, ranging from Peter Jackson’s 2005 abortion to the Big G’s partnership with Jet Jaguar. Of the four Monsterverse films in this series, all of them have some problems resulting from the producers’ use of various writers and directors as “hired guns,” resulting in a lot of narrative incoherence. Now that GVK has made good money, I would imagine that the production company will turn its thoughts to more collaboration with Godzilla’s Toho owners. I wouldn’t mind seeing GVK remain the last of the series, but if another installment does appear, I’ll watch it.

THE GOLDEN IDOL (1954)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*


The most interesting thing about the last three BOMBA films is that, although numbers 10 and 11 are nearly rock-bottom in terms of general entertainment values, the twelfth and last at least rises to the level of "fair," which puts it on the same mythicity-level with the first (and best) in the series.

The idol of number 10's title-- hilariously referred to several times as "the Golden Idol of Watusi"-- is a priceless relic that the Jungle Boy steals from Ali, a crooked Arab chieftain, who in turn stole the idol from its true owner. Ali suborns the help of a crooked white hunter to track down Bomba and recover the statue. At the same time, a pretty young archaeologist arrives, and she tells Bomba that museums will pay top dollar for the idol to the tribe that owned it. (Almost as soon as she arrives, she decides to go swimming, signifying that the shadow of Maureen O'Sullivan still loomed large over the Bomba series even by the 1950s.) Mostly, IDOL burns up its running time with various chases and captures, none of which are memorable.

HONOR ROLL #105, FEBRUARY 10

 The judge found ANNE KIMBRELL guilty of idol worship.

The Big G won the battle but Millennium's version of KONG got all the best scenes.

TOBY KEBBELL is wrathful that no one remembers his TITANS movie.

When he made this one WILLIAM KATT was a long way for Ralph Dinkley and his superhero longjohns.

The sin of the girl named JOYANA was mainly bad acting, though no worse than anyone else in the film.

I think they named him KILOWOG because he turned up the energy on the Green Lanterns.

THE SPIDER RETURNS (1941)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Since THE SPIDER'S WEB made money for Columbia, one might have thought that the production team would try to follow the template of that serial closely for the sequel. Instead, RETURNS is a strange farrago of misfires, so much so that one could  almost imagine that it was made by people who had nothing to do with the first entry.

The fact that only one scripter from WEB, George Plympton, collaborated on RETURNS may be the reason the latter film is so aimless, lacking the former's strong set-pieces and dialogue. Another factor may be that this time James W. Horne, who shared co-director credit on WEB with Ray Taylor, was the sole occupant of the director's chair this time. While RETURNS is not rife with as many "baggy-pants" moments of comedy as other Horne offerings, being on his own may have allowed him to be less concerned with quality control. Of the original cast, only Warren Hull and Kenne Duncan, playing respectively the Spider and his aide Ram Singh, reprise their roles. Secondary aide Jackson is now played by Dave O'Brien, who furnished stunts on WEB, while Mary Ainslee steps in as female lead Nita Van Sloane. As in the first serial, there are multiple suspects as to the identity of the main malefactor. But whereas in WEB the Octopus remains in his sanctuary while giving orders to his henchmen, the new villain in town, the Gargoyle, is conspicuous for running around on errands of  violence his men, despite the fact that his cowl-mask and robes make him fairly conspicuous.

Other differences may have been stemmed from the reception of the first serial by audiences. Whereas in WEB the Spider mowed down a goodly number of disposable thugs with his twin handguns, this time the hero barely uses his weapons at all, and there are many more slug-nutty scenes in which the arachnid avenger takes on five-six crooks at once in wild, windmilling battles, often ending with the Spider overwhelmed. Yet the plot of RETURNS might have allowed for more violence, for this time the villains are rooted in a real-world threat. Though the serial was released in May 1941, half a year before the US entered WWII, and though the Gargoyle is not explicitly tied to the Axis, the mastermind and his gangsters are all saboteurs seeking to weaken America's defense systems. Yet, not until the last few episodes does one see the characters make any patriotic speeches.

The Gargoyle does resemble the Octopus in one regard: though most of both villains' weapons are either naturalistic or uncanny, each of them has just one marvelous resource. In WEB it's a beam that zaps airplanes, and in RETURNS it's a bizarre X-ray machine that allows the villain to spy on people over great distances. (The gizmo thus combines not only the ability of Superman's X-ray vision but also his so-called "telescopic vision.") The X-ray machine is a goofy looking apparatus, full of gimcrack add-ons, so its appearance may be in line with Horne's sense of humor. A couple of more "straight" traps include a conveyor belt that almost delivers the Spider to a furnace, and a room gimmicked with both blazing fires and with closing walls lined with spikes.

Warren Hull still gets all the requisite heroic moments, as well as delivering some comic relief as his fake criminal identity Blinky McQuade. But Duncan hardly gets any of his oddball Sikh homilies, while Ainslee is relegated to a much less feisty version of Nita Van Sloan. Nita does handle a gun ably once or twice, but she shies away from fights with the henchmen. Even when pitted against another woman-- a grotesque crosseyed woman-- this Nita only barely manages to overpower her foe by loosely pressing a pillow over her face. The angle about Wentworth telling Nita that he intends to quit being the Spider is only marginally referenced due to the crusade for national security. 

SPIDER RETURNS is certainly not the worst serial ever, and the aimless plot does pick up a little in the end chapters, during which the Gargoyle kidnaps Nita and the hero, assuming his Blinky guise, infiltrates the gang to "reluctantly" take possession of her, a trope later used to great effect in Tarantino's DJANGO UNCHAINED. RETURNS is just one of the many serials where the sum of the parts don't add up into a pleasurable whole.