Legends of Horror & The Hays Code

Recently at Probert Towers we’ve been having fun with the Hays Code. Or rather, we’ve been having fun watching movies made before and just after this compromising, restricting, subjective set of rules was brought in to govern the content of Hollywood movies in the mid nineteen thirties to “protect” audiences from scenes of excessive violence, sexuality and good old Deviant Behaviour.

If you want to see for yourself what kind of effect this censorship had on films of the time then you need go no further than the MGM LEGENDS OF HORROR DVD boxset. For your money you get the pre-code horrors of Karl Freund’s MAD LOVE, Boris Karloff in THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, and Michael Curtiz’s DOCTOR X, as well as post-code movies THE DEVIL DOLL and MARK OF THE VAMPIRE from Tod Browning, and THE RETURN OF DR X starring Humphrey Bogart.

The precode movies range from the excellent (MAD LOVE) through to the more ordinary (DOCTOR X) but are never less than interesting. The sight of Peter Lorre pretending to be the Rollo the guillotined knife thrower with his head strapped back on is still pretty unsettling, and the tortures devised by Boris Karloff as Fu Manchu suggest that left unchecked Hollywood may have ended up making the SAW movies in the forties rather than the noughties. As examples of their type they’re not bad at all, and if you like these then you should certainly check out the nasty and naughty MURDERS IN THE ZOO (1933) and the Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi double-headers THE RAVEN and THE BLACK CAT (both 1935), all of which contain nastiness that Hollywood wouldn’t be allowed to include in its product for many years following.

Was the Hays Code responsible for a decline in quality? Probably not, in fact I suspect that all it did was prevent ludicrous ‘B’ programmers from adding unpleasant cruelty to their already ludicrous, incomprehensible and badly-researched plotlines. THE RETURN OF DR X (1939) stars Humphrey Bogart as a medic back from the dead after going to the electric chair because he “wanted to see how long a baby could go without eating for”. Hardly the genius surgeon (there must have been far better, exotic and more lurid ways to end up executed, even post-Code, and I bet Lionel Atwill would have known what they were) he comes back to life as a result of blood transfusions. The lecture we get on blood groups is as if Karl Landsteiner, the world-famous scientist who actually discovered this stuff, never existed, and Bogie’s back from the dead just long enough to take a pretty nurse off to his matte painting of an old shack in the swamp where he promptly ends up shot and uttering an ‘important’ last line that’s about as meaningful as the rest of this twaddle.

Certainly the Hays Code didn’t lead to a decrease in daftness or elderly actors dressing up in women’s clothing, as THE DEVIL DOLL testifies. Based on Abraham Merritt’s novel BURN WITCH BURN (you can read my review of that, along with its precursor SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN, on the Vault of Evil website) the film starts off bonkers and gets worse. Lionel ‘I’ve had the bit of my brain removed labelled “restrained acting”‘ Barrymore escapes from Devil’s Island with a friend. Lionel wants revenge on the men who caused him to be unjustly imprisoned. Thankfully his friend has altogether more utterly ludicrous ambitions that involve shrinking the population of the world to the size of little dolls to solve the world’s food problems. He shows Lionel some plastic models of dogs and then, in a bit of fairly ambitious special effects for the time, we get to see the miniaturised dogs walking around. The serving girl gets the treatment next, which as well as shrinking her cures her of her ‘mental retardation’ for no reason that’s explained. Lionel’s friend dies of a heart attack, which is Lionel’s cue to go to Paris, dress up as an old lady, and use the doll-making device to create miniature assassins and in one case at least to presumably assuage his boredom (there’s no other reason for him shrinking a horse and where the hell does he get the room to do that anyway?) Clearly far too comfortable in his old lady getup Lionel finally clears his name and we get a rather odd coda that’s presumably Browning’s nod to the Hays’ Office to let him off the blatant female microphilia we’ve seen in the swampland laboratory scene.

However daft THE DEVIL DOLL may be it’s neither as patchy nor as ultimately unsatisfying as MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, made by Browning a year earlier and featuring another performance from Lionel Barrymore who has obviously been told to forego his usual timidity and really play things up. Bela Lugosi’s in this one too, in all the scenes that get used as stills, and with just one line. The vampire bits are superbly atmospheric but once we get on to plot it’s almost as stagy as Browning’s DRACULA and you get the feeling his heart wasn’t in it.

Watching a box set like this makes one wonder what would have happened if a similar code had been brought in for literature. In the UK the main fiction to suffer would probably have been Christine Campbell Thompson’s NOT AT NIGHT series, Charles Birkin’s CREEPS and of course the dear old PAN BOOK OF HORROR. Some would argue that this might not have been such a bad thing, but on the other hand without those stories I wouldn’t have become the horror fan that I am and consequently you wouldn’t be reading this now. But all of that is quite another story…

Cannibals, Coppola and Kinski - Oh My! The "Up The Creek Without A Paddle" Subgenre

Recently, being in the mood for something that would leave us wrung out, we 'treated' ourselves to a rewatch of Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST at Probert Towers. It's no surprise that this film often tends to be discussed and compared with cannibal movies produced around the same time, such as Umberto Lenzi's MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY and DEEP RIVER SAVAGES, and Sergio Martino's SLAVE OF THE CANNIBAL GOD. But whereas Lenzi and Martino’s intentions were to make purely exploitative gory jungle adventures there’s a lot more going on in Deodato's picture. Indeed, despite the parts of it that no-one can condone, I think the rest of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST displays a level of integrity that allows it to be discussed in the same breath as a different group of films altogether. 'Up the Creek Without a Paddle' may sound a flippant phrase to describe these movies and for anyone who might prefer something more serious sounding then 'Journeys into the Heart of Darkness' would be equally apt. Because that is what these films are – worst case scenarios of what happens when often foolhardy individuals with unrealistic expectations set off into some unknown wilderness. As the story unfolds it becomes obvious to the viewer, but often not to the characters themselves, that they stand little chance of surviving as they venture further into hostile territory. We know that all that actually awaits them is madness and death, that their fated journey is merely a disaster waiting to happen, and all we can do is watch fascinated as it all happens before out very eyes, sometimes in an almost unbearably protracted form.

            CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is a grim, unpleasant, unrelenting film. It has deservedly courted controversy and ironically has nearly destroyed the career of its director while at the time being the best thing he has ever done. It's an easy target for those who wish to criticise it, and the use of animal footage has been deemed misjudged by pretty much everyone, including its director. Apart from the obvious reasons, it's a great shame that footage was included at all as it has served to detract from what is a biting, beautifully constructed, utterly harrowing satire on the lengths unscrupulous documentary film-makers could be prepared to go to in order to get results. Of all the graphic and unpleasant horror films made during the late seventies and early eighties, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is probably the only one that has even more relevance today than it did when it was made. The film is now old enough that those who want to see it probably have, and those who know it would be too much for them have sensibly steered clear. But if you like your cinema tense, cruel and edge-of-the-seat-exhausting, if your experience of films from the period has been coloured by the efforts of Lenzi et al, and you haven’t seen CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, I’d recommend you check out the Grindhouse double disc Region 1 DVD release from a couple of years ago that has the ‘animal cruelty free’ option.

            For further examples of the sub-genre we need look no further than some of its most respected practitioners. Werner Herzog's AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD is the spellbinding story of a group of Spanish conquistadores who decided to journey up the Amazon in search of the fabled city of Eldorado. We know they're onto a loser from the start but it's only a couple of minutes in, when the camera catches sight of a certain Klaus Kinski, that we know they're utterly doomed. What follows is seriously great film-making, as the intrepid group pushes ever onwards losing men and women along the way, with Klaus eventually doing what Klaus always did best - scaring the hell out of anyone within a 100 mile radius with his contagious madness, chasing monkeys and insisting the few remaining members of his band pilot their hopeless little raft on into inevitable death and destruction. We're with them all the way, through death and disease, hallucinations and madness towards the inevitable conclusion, and the film is a fascinating experience that rewards repeat viewings.

            A few years later, and on a much bigger budget, Francis Ford Coppola would embark on a similar journey, taking cast, crew, financiers and eventually, once it was finished, the audience with him as well when he made APOCALYPSE NOW. We're with Martin Sheen all the way as he descends into both literal and metaphorical hells, and by the time his band of weary 'explorers' find Dennis Hopper it's clear they've all arrived at a level of hell only Mr Hopper has probably seen previously. All that's left is for Marlon Brando to tell us, not entirely intelligibly, about “the horror, the horror” and Coppola's operatic journey into his very personal heart of darkness is complete.      

Perhaps the most recent contribution to the subgenre has to be Nicolas Winding-Refn’s Viking epic VALHALLA RISING, a film where almost nothing happens and yet the grim atmosphere and unrelenting sense of dread means you can’t take your eyes off the screen. Slow moving but always fascinating, the movie doesn’t really need its on-screen chapter headings for you to know that this is a story about a group of men who have no idea where they’re going or that they’ve completely lost their way. It’s a testament to the skill of the film-maker than so many of the ‘twist’ endings that have been suggested as add-ons to the way the film actually ends are so apt. Everything from the final shot being of an apocalyptic cityscape to Winding-Refn’s own suggestion that a spaceship arrives to carry away the character of One-Eye merely proves that that the “haunted hopeless journey into madness” tale is one that suits any time period.

Eyes Without Faces, or What To Do If You’re A Brilliant Surgeon And Your Daughter’s Had A Bit of an Accident

This week Lady P and I have had the good fortune to see two films on the big screen about brilliant-but-mad plastic surgeons doing terrible things to people because of family misdemeanours. Both of these movies, made more than fifty years apart, are the creations of highly respected ‘art house’ movie directors, and they currently bookend a horror movie subgenre that has otherwise been characterised by projects that can only be described as being of a rather lesser quality, even though they can provide their own rewards if viewed in the right mood.

            Georges Franju’s classic LES YEUX SANS VISAGE is currently enjoying a big screen revival in various art house cinemas across the country. The print is tatty and scratched and the sound didn’t work on the first attempt to thread it through the projector in our local cinema, but that was all part of the fun to be had, as was watching it with those lured in by the prospect of an 1950s art film who weren’t  expecting to see gory face transplants carried out in sparkling black and white or Alida Valli stabbed in the throat.

            I would always argue that Franju’s film is a genre picture more than anything else. The tale of the surgeon responsible for destroying his own daughter’s face and willing to do anything to repair his actions is the stuff of pulp paperback luridness, and Franju certainly elevates it way above its penny dreadful potential, making as fine a horror film as one could hope for with the material. Apart from the nasty bits there’s a pervasive gloom to the film that serves to augment the desperate situation of its central character, wandering her father’s isolated country mansion, a literally faceless wraith assumed dead by the rest of the world. One imagines the city-set scenes at the police station and its environs would be grey even if the picture were in colour, and it never seems to stop raining. Almost from the beginning there is no suggestion that the film is going to end anything other than badly, which is possibly why the final scene is all the more moving, simultaneously suggesting hope and hopelessness, freedom and utter loneliness.  The film was made in 1959 but it’s best viewed out of context with contemporary horror cinema of the time – Hammer were well on their way to becoming the most successful producers of horror films in the world, Hitchcock was about to make PSYCHO, and British company Anglo Amalgamated had just released Michael Powell’s PEEPING TOM. Compared with these slicker movies the Franju film seems very creaky indeed – no less effective, but nevertheless it feels as if it belongs to a different age, making the surgical scenes and the deaths at the climax possibly even more shocking and unexpected. Definitely worth catching if you get the chance.

            Pedro Almodovar’s THE SKIN I LIVE IN is also on release at the moment and is the latest take on the theme popularised and elevated to art form by Franju. Antonio Banderas plays another brilliant plastic surgeon, one who has invented a new form of artificial skin. He also has more than his fair share of secrets as well as a beautiful girl locked up in his remote country clinic-cum-home complete with operating theatre, but then don’t we all? To say much more would spoil the surprises Almodovar has in store, suffice to say that this is as much a horror film as the Franju picture, and walks the narrow line between EuroTrash and EuroArt – and I mean that in a very, very good way.

            Of course to get from Franju to Almodovar fans of this particular subgenre of movie have had to endure a number of efforts which could be considered at best sub-par and at worst sleazy and incomprehensible. First off the English language speaking mark was probably Robert Hartford-Davis’ CORRUPTION, a nasty British version of the story with Peter Cushing causing the burning of his beautiful model girlfriend’s face at a party and spending the rest of the film trying to make it all better. Unfortunately ‘making it all better’ in Corruption-land means hacking girls’ heads off in gruesome detail, extracting pituitary glands the size of a small root vegetable and using a private laser that’s massive but somehow easily transportable from a London townhouse to a country cottage near the sea.. Unfortunately Mr Cushing obviously hasn’t done his laser safety training and everything goes completely bonkers at the end but it’s all ok because not satisfied with one daft ending Hartford-Davis et al have tacked on another one as well that makes everything out to be a dream. I think. Still difficult to get hold of in its country of origin anyone willing to brave this will need to do a bit of searching to find the uncut version, horrible inappropriate incessant jazz music score and all.

            Not to be outdone by the Europeans, the US came up with its own unpleasant variation on this theme with 1976’s MANSION OF THE DOOMED. Richard Basehart is the doctor with the accident-prone daughter. She loses her eyes in an auto wreck, resulting in dad popping eyeballs out of other people’s skulls and into hers willy nilly with such abandon it’s a good thing he’s got a great big cage in the cellar to put all the ‘donors’ in. Quite why he locks them up and treats them like stray dogs is a bit of a mystery until we realise this is an early Charles Band production and consequently have to adjust our tasteometer settings to a few notches below zero. Michael Pataki was responsible for directing this one just before starring in perennial TV favourite of our youth ZOLTAN, HOUND OF DRACULA (as Dracula just to avoid any confusion), and after this and appearing in The Bat People he probably deserved it.

            And then of course there’s Jess Franco. Usually mentioned only to be condemned, I have a sneaking liking for some of his more art house pieces (stop sniggering at the back there). His 1988 production FACELESS was intended as a much higher quality movie than much of his work of the two previous decades, which admittedly wouldn’t be difficult as anyone who has seen more than a couple of his efforts can testify. Helmut Berger’s the doctor in this one and it’s his sister that gets the hideous facial rearrangement which comes about because one of Helmut’s old patients isn’t happy with his work and rather than complain to her local MP she lobs a bottle of acid at him one evening in a car park. Unfortunately it misses and sister Ingrid gets it instead. Off goes Helmut to his chum Dr Orloff (Howard Vernon) for advice and he suggests old Nazi plastic surgery colleague Anton Diffring. They kidnap model Caroline Munro, causing her wealthy father Telly Savalas to hire private detective Chris Mitchum to find her. A lot of daftness takes place before – surprise! – the face transplant is performed and is a success! The doctors toast their success while leaving Chris and Caroline to die – the end. Well, pretty much. Of course Franco had tackled the subject before in 1961’s AWFUL DR ORLOFF, another one of the director’s films that’s actually worth watching. I do realise that if I recommend any more Franco I shall have to have some plastic surgery of my own to escape irate movie fans who may not be as kindly disposed to the director’s work as I am, so for now I shall leave it at that.