Wendigo Meets HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)

My friend Wendigo estimates that he's seen Terence Fisher's landmark vampire film more times than any other "Dracula" movie, unless you count Nosferatu. Despite that, he was still able to look at it with fresh eyes to mark our return from an unintended hiatus following Wendigo's discovery of the Encore Westerns channel. Someday we might start doing "Wendigo's Wild West," but for now we've taken the latest title off the top of his to-do pile and asked ourselves where Horror of Dracula's real significance lies.

Released in the U.K. as just plain Dracula -- Warner Bros., the U.S. distributor, was more deferential toward Universal's implicit claim to the Dracula title even though Universal itself distributed Hammer's film in some markets without fuss -- Fisher's film is a natural follow-up to his Curse of Frankenstein from the previous year, bringing back Peter Cushing as the protagonist and Christopher Lee as the monster. Like Curse, it was something new as a Technicolor horror movie. What was new and lastingly distinctive, in Wendigo's opinion, is the paring down of Bram Stoker's source story and the increased prominence of Van Helsing as a more energetic vampire hunter. Renfield is perhaps the most conspicuous absence, and as is almost always the case, Quincey Morris is nowhere to be found. Dracula himself is strangely monogamous, having but one bride when Jonathan Harker visits him, but Wendigo suspects that the master vampire may have had to live on a budget. Most impressive and probably most influential is the physicality of the combat between vampire and hunter. Cushing has to do more than brandish a cross to get the upper hand on Lee -- crossing candlesticks is really more a coup de grace than the decisive blow. Cross damage, however, plays a more important role here than in previous vampire films; Fisher makes much of how they burn a vampire's thrall on contact. That's typical of a greater use of effects to portray supernatural damage, as in Lee's protracted destruction.

Above and below: the power of the cross.

As a new kind of Dracula, Lee makes a strong early impression, but there are already signs of trouble for his later career in the role. In his first appearance he is casually conversational, articulate and businesslike, and Lee handles these scenes with ease. But after he leaves Harker in his room, Lee never gets another line of dialogue, setting the tone for his reappearance in Dracula, Prince of Darkness, when he has no dialogue at all.

Christopher Lee: shadow and substance.

Why silence Lee so soon? I suspect that Hammer may not have been too confident in an un-accented, un-foreign Dracula, but Wendigo makes the more pragmatic point that, in billing and practically every other detail, this is Cushing's movie, not Lee's, and it wasn't Lee's job to upstage the star by grabbing the best lines. Cushing at this point was perhaps the most popular star on British television while Lee was still paying his dues, and the roles are proportioned accordingly.

Wendigo readily allows that Horror of Dracula -- or Dracula, if you prefer -- is a movie about Van Helsing. That may reflect Cushing's stardom, but it also reflects a new sense of what Van Helsing is about that continues into a sequel that also has Dracula in the title, but features Van Helsing instead of Dracula. The scholar and vampire hunter is the initiator of the action rather than an expert called in for help in the middle. Jonathan Harker is only his helper and spy, sent by the good doctor to take the job Dracula was offering (in the want ads???) as the castle librarian. He is one of who-knows-how-many agents Van Helsing employs in his crusade against the "insidious cult" of vampires, and as such, the protagonist of Stoker's novel is no more than cannon fodder. That means, we must note, that Harker has to be stupid. He could have ended this movie after two reels if he had thought to stake a still-helpless Dracula first when he discovers the vampire's sleeping quarters. Instead, the idiot decides to stake the contentious Mrs. Dracula first. What was that, practice? Anyway, for that Harker deserves his fate, and that clears the stage for Van Helsing to take over. Our hero is a man of science as well as fate; in a scene Hammer would come to regret, he tells Arthur Holmwood (the late Michael Gough) that vampires turning into bats is just a myth. Wendigo thinks this bit of debunking was another case of Hammer knowing its limitations. In his opinion, given the studio's history of bat effects, they shouldn't have forgotten them. But he thinks Van Helsing's lecture may have had an influence beyond Hammer, as many modern vampires lack the panoply of powers that the doctor denies.

But for all that's new in Hammer's Dracula, Horror is in some ways reminiscent of Universal's vampire films. The most notable similarity is tied to writer Jimmy Sangster's most significant departure from Stoker -- the fact that Dracula never leaves Europe. The way some people write about how Stoker's Dracula stands for the general threat of the foreigner polluting England, it might seem that Sangster loses the point of the story if the Count doesn't invade the island kingdom. But he sets the story in a landscape much like what we call "preoccupied Europe," the timeless setting of Universal's monster rallies. Casting Lee as Dracula and having him speak without a Transylvanian accent is reminiscent of Universal's use of Lon Chaney Jr. and John Carradine in its later Dracula movies. By comparison, when an American studio revived Dracula around the same time, they made a point of casting an obvious foreigner, Francis Lederer, in an echo of Bela Lugosi. As for the period, the most we can say is that, whether Sangster meant it or not, the film can take place no earlier than 1903, thanks to Van Helsing's comparison of a little girl to a Teddy bear. But the landscape of Klaussenberg, Ingolstadt, etc., strongly resembles Universal's Visaria more than anyplace else -- with an important bit of difference. Dracula's territory seems to be getting colonized by Englishmen.

Horror of Dracula competed against William Castle's Macabre in some North American markets. At least one enterprising exhibitor thought the film could use a gimmick to compete more effectively.

Jonathan Harker is just an interloper, but Arthur Holmwood appears to be a permanent residence, and another Englishman, Dr. Seward, practices there. Wendigo notes that Hammer's mitteleuropa is really a barely-disguised rural England, given how few actors attempt foreign accents. He suggests that Hammer's Europe may symbolize English nostalgia for a disappearing past and its rustic traditions. I can agree with that, but I'd like to go further out on a limb and suggest that Horror of Dracula is a "postcolonial" film for the dying days of the British Empire. My description of Holmwood and Seward as "colonists" probably tipped my hand already on that point. In that context, it may not be as important for Dracula to invade England as it is for him to be a kind of native insurgent, representing the danger of the "dark" tides engulfing the handful of English whose efforts to civilize the world are apparently failing. Read that way, the "horror" film Dracula is not so different from such Hammer "adventure" films as Stranglers of Bombay and Terror of the Tongs, which also highlight Englishmen in peril abroad among secretive hostile natives with strange powers over the mind, thanks to drugs or fanatic religion. The "cult of the vampires" thus becomes an analogue for the Thugee cult and other terrifying phenomena of imperial history that Hammer would later confront directly. Wendigo sees some merit in this reading, but he thinks it was more likely a subconscious approach by Sangster, the conscious motive being to save money by re-using as many Curse of Frankenstein sets as possible.

Lee lacks a certain grace in his flight from Cushing, but those stairs probably did neither man many favors.

Horror of Dracula's place in movie history is indisputable, but Wendigo finds the Hammer Dracula series to be less than meets the eye. The studio never really gives the vampire enough to do, or at least enough to make him an interesting character. Most of his favorite Hammer vampire films have nothing to do with Dracula; those do more with vampire concepts than the Dracula movies ever dared. Brides of Dracula is arguably an exception, but mainly because it had no Dracula. Had a Van Helsing series continued from that point, instead of being feebly resumed with Dracula A.D. 1972, Hammer may have changed the face of horror cinema in an even more profound way. Christopher Lee may not be a truly great Dracula, but Peter Cushing is nearly the definitive cinematic Van Helsing, with Edward Van Sloan from the Universal Dracula as his only serious competition. For introducing Cushing's vampire hunter, the model for generations of paranormal warriors to come, Horror's place in history remains secure.

It's harder than I expected to find a 1958 "Dracula" (as opposed to "Horror") trailer online -- so this U.S. trailer uploaded to YouTube by hermankatnip will have to do.

Kinji Fukasaku's FALL GUY (1982)

Kinji Fukasaku's most honored film in his home country isn't one of his yakuza epics, nor his exuberantly dystopian final testament Battle Royale, but a comedy-drama about the movie business that's also Japan's contribution to the stuntman genre. Kamata kyoshin-kyoku's American title is an obvious invocation of the Lee Majors TV series The Fall Guy, but Fukasaku's movie is something more ambitious that might stand comparison with Richard Rush's The Stunt Man, even if it's not the superior film. But you wouldn't know that from the people who give out Japan's various film awards, who honored Fukasaku, his film and his lead actors in something like a sweep in a year that also boasted Hideo Gosha's formidable Onimasa. Maybe the critics and academy members simply dug a movie-movie, but maybe something more is going on here, too.

"Kamata" is the Tokyo neighborhood that's home to the mighty Toei studio, Fukasaku's base of operations for most of the 1970s and as such Japan's answer to Warner Bros. in the 1930s. Fall Guy isn't a Toei production; the studio is only playing itself and lending technical assistance to a Kodokawa production released by Shochiku. The movie deals with the making of a samurai film that's complicated by the rivalry of two Toei contract players, each with his own posse of cronies and hangers-on who get bit parts and stunt jobs in the picture. We focus on Ginshiro (Morio Kazama), who grows afraid that a younger star is getting more screen time, more close-ups, and more stuntmen to kill. He also faces an imminent scandal now that his mistress Konatsu (Keiko Matsuzaka) is pregnant. "Gin-chan" thinks he can still steal the film if the director actually shoots a scene in the script where he slays an enemy who falls down a flight of 39 steps -- but to the bloodthirsty director's chagrin, the studio is unwilling to take the risk of a stuntman dying from the tumble. "These are bad times to make movies," he complains, "The days of respecting humanity and rejecting violence." The injustice of it all drives Ginshiro to drunken despair.

But we can tell from one lingering gaze that one of Gin-chan's stuntman acolytes, Yasu (Mitsuru Hirata) is thinking about those stairs. Yasu has dreams of stardom himself, though despite his amateur stuntmanship his idol appears to be James Dean. He soon finds that Gin-chan has a big favor to ask of him, though not the one we first expect. The star wants Yasu to marry Konatsu and claim her child as his own to save himself from a scandal that could jeopardize his acting and recording careers. This is just one of the many ways that the flamboyantly dressed and apparently untalented Gin-chan proves himself a boor and an idiot. At an early point I had the suspicion that Fall Guy might prove a one-joke movie: a fit subject for Fukasaku because movie stars and their cliques are not unlike yakuza gangs in their lack of honor and humanity. But as the story of Yasu and Konatsu and their on-off relationship develops, the film acquires a life of its own.

Keiko Matzusaka, Morio Kazama and Misturu Hirata form a triangle

There's a lot of slapstick early as Yasu strives to make an acceptable home for his new charge by taking every lucratively risky stunt he can. He gets to interact with such Toei stalwarts as Sonny Chiba and the now-globally respected character actor Hiroyuki Sanada, who was then Chiba's protege and a pretty-boy action hero. Despite her hatred of the situation Gin-chan has imposed on her, Konatsu can't help admiring Yasu's determination and his sense of commitment. But she remains torn between the stuntman and the father of her unborn child, who doesn't entirely want to leave her behind. Yasu feels strong loyalty to Gin-chan and strong obligation, as well as a genuine growing love, for Konatsu, a starlet he's secretly idolized for years -- a Dean poster long covered one of hers. But the film takes a more serious turn as Yasu's feelings for his mentor and his new wife are complicated by the infuriating feeling that, just as in the movie business, he's no more than a bit player in other people's drama. Fearing that Gin-chan's career is on the brink of ruin, Yasu volunteers to do the stair stunt despite Konatsu's insistence against it. Fukasaku slowly builds the suspense as conflicting feelings seethe in Yasu before the big stunt. If he seems subconsciously willing to sacrifice himself to reconcile Konatsu and Gin-chan, he also seems to increasingly resent both of them while realizing that the now heavily publicized stunt will give him a coveted moment in the spotlight that he'd like to extend and exploit as much as possible. And to add to the melodrama, Konatsu is likely to go into labor just as the cameras roll and Yasu ascends the fateful stairway....

It just occurred to me that one unlikely film Fall Guy resembles in its build-up to a death-defying if not death-inviting stunt is Max Ophuls's Lola Montes, but the resemblance pretty much ends there. There are also moments when Fukasaku's film reminds me more of Martin Scorsese's contemporary King of Comedy, not because of any specific plot points, but because of the almost Scorsesean intensity and ambition Mitsuru Hirata expresses in a star-making role in a film set in the world of entertainment. In more practical terms, Fall Guy does resemble The Stunt Man in the occasionally blatant unreality of scenes that supposedly show the reality of moviemaking. We hear obvious foley sound effects during the filming of fight scenes, for instance, while Sanada gets to make impossible leaps while Fukasaku maintains rather than exposes the illusions that enable him. The director, with writer Kohei Tsuka, arguably goes further than Rush to blur the lines between the illusion of reality and the reality of illusions. An extended sequence flows from Gin-chan's latest farewell to Konatsu on a soundstage where the incomplete stairway looms to what looks like a dream sequence of her wedding to Yasu on the same stairs, which spills into the street as the happy couple and friends dance their way up a fire escape to the bridal apartment -- but once the dream appears to be over the couple are in fact married. Was that the actual wedding? If not, it'll do as a stand-in. And if that doesn't make your head spin, then there's still the fourth wall to be breached before the film is done, and songs to be sung in praise of the fantastic power of cinema.

Mitsuru Hirata really elevates this film to a higher level with his all-out performance, combining slapstick buffoonery and realistic rage in the kind of mix you rarely saw after movies started talking. But I can't follow the apparent Japanese consensus that Fall Guy is Fukasaku's best film. There's too much overblown comic acting for my taste, with Morio Kazama the worst offender, and Fukasaku himself seems to be suppressing his personal style for this project. But while he never tilts the camera in his signature matter, he retains his knack for tightly-focused mayhem, especially during Hata's apartment-wrecking tantrum. He also does things I'm not accustomed to seeing him do, like that quasi-dream sequence. Fall Guy testifies to Fukasaku's range and his effectiveness as a cinematic storyteller, but just as John Ford's best film is most likely a western for most people, Fukasaku is still at his best for me when telling yakuza stories. The director's growing number of American fans should still check this out sometime just to get a better sense of the fullness of his career, and to see him at what his peers deemed the peak of his powers.

Buster Keaton in THE HIGH SIGN (1920)

Kino's new "Ultimate 3-Disc Edition" of Buster Keaton's silent short subjects starts appropriately enough with the first one he made as a star after inheriting Fatty Arbuckle's spot on the Joseph M. Schenck roster when Arbuckle graduated to feature films. According to the supplemental materials, Keaton shelved The High Sign because he didn't consider it enough of an announcement of his individual style, and released it only when an injury made it necessary in order to meet his contractual obligations. It's not a bad little film at all, and it's not really any more primitive or Arbuckle-esque than some of his other early shorts. But you can see why Keaton thought he could do better.

Buster lands on screen after being thrown from a speeding train into "somewhere," having come from "nowhere," as an opening title informs us. He strolls over to a nearby merry-go-round and snatches a newspaper from under a passing rider's arm. It's a strangely defective newspaper; all the pages seem to be attached, and the edition threatens to engulf Buster as he unfolds it. There's no good reason for a newspaper to be this way, but near the end of his life Keaton would figure out a better device for the gag: a map in the Canadian travelogue The Railroader. In any event, he finds the classifieds and sees a want-ad for a target shooter for a local shooting gallery. He resolves to get the job, but not before the carousel rider, having lost his paper, accosts him and pays him for the same copy, not realizing that it's his.

There's a guileless ruthlessness to early Buster that's reminiscent of Arbuckle and is best displayed here when he decides he needs to practice before applying for the job. To do that, he needs a gun. He gets one by snatching it out of a policeman's holster, replacing it with a banana. He takes target practice with absurd results. In some of the simplest sight gags, he points his gun at one bottle, and the bottle to its left or right explodes -- or, firing straight ahead at a bottle, he'll hit a heckling Al St. John, a fellow Arbuckle alumnus, right in the ass. Buster needs little practice before applying, and he works out a way to impress "Tiny Tim," the giant boss of the shooting gallery, by contriving one of Keaton's characteristic contraptions. Whenever he fires at a target, his mechanism sets a dog after food outside. The dog's action rings a bell, convincing Tiny Tim, who is only listening, not watching, that Buster's a crack shot.

Tiny Tim leads a double life. He secretly leads the Blinking Buzzards, a Black Hand-like extortion gang, and Buster's apparent prowess with firearms makes him an ideal assassin. He is sworn into the gang and given his first assignment: to kill the wealthy August Pennypincher should the magnate fail to pay the money demanded by September 1. "The first of September will be the end of August," the Buzzards warn in their extortion letter -- one of several bits of verbal humor that seem uncharacteristic of Keaton. But there's a problem with the scheme: Pennypincher and his pretty daughter had earlier visited the shooting gallery and, equally impressed or duped, the great man had hired Buster as his bodyguard. But if he doesn't kill Pennypincher, the Buzzards will kill him....

The High Sign reminds me of the melodramatic underworld thrillers Lon Chaney Sr. was making at the same time, and given Keaton's parodic inclinations, he may have envisioned the film as an outright genre parody. There's definitely a self-conscious quality to the short, most obviously seen in what may be its best known shot. Tiny Tim has encountered the cop Buster robbed earlier, who is embarrassed upon encountering the menace to pull a banana out of his holster. Tim snatches it, scares the cop away, and eats the banana, letting the peel drop to the sidewalk like the slob he is. Here comes Buster around a corner. You know what must happen -- except it doesn't. Our hero walks right past the peel and gives the titular high sign -- the crossed hands in front of the nose, fingers flapping like wings -- right at the camera and the audience. It's an announcement that his aren't going to be your normal predictable two-reelers.

At the same time, it may have struck Keaton as too unreal of a gesture, too absurd like some of this film's sight gags, to be entirely satisfactory. But there are scenes here that are already echt Keaton, especially his chase scene through the two stories and four rooms of a cutaway house full of trapdoors and secret passages. It's the first hint of Keaton's particular sense of spectacle that would find expensive expression in his later features. But overall, Keaton was probably right to believe that he hadn't yet found his distinctive tone or attitude. Still, his rookie effort compares favorably with many a contemporary short from more seasoned performers, and we can be patient with it today knowing that there are masterpieces to come.

* * *
This review will most likely inaugurate a series on the Keaton silent shorts. They shouldn't take long to write and will help me maintain my schedule when I find myself dithering over which features I should review. Also, Keaton is probably still my favorite silent comedian and I look forward to retracing his steps as he ascends to mastery. Not to give anything away, but we won't have long to wait.

FLAMING STAR (1960)

Volatile in its conception, Don Siegel's bleak western probably looks more exceptional in retrospect than it did at the time of its release in December 1960. Claif Huffaker's novel Flaming Lance had been adapted for film by the author and screenwriter Nunnaly Johnson as "Black Star," and a song had been recorded with that title before the studio decided to split the difference and call the movie Flaming Star. What a flaming star would signify remained unclear; the final tital song evokes a destiny up for grabs, but in the body of the film the flaming star stands, as a black star would have more convincingly, for death. More songs were composed for the picture; newspaper ads promised that four would be heard, but contemporary reviews indicate that the reviewers saw and heard what we see today: the title tune in voiceover and an almost perfunctory dance song within the first few minutes of the story. The other two were recorded but apparently cut too late to change the advertising. Both the studio and the star seemed to realize that songs wouldn't sit well with the story Siegel would tell. But these weren't the only changes. Fresh from filming Mario Bava's Black Sunday, Barbara Steele came to Hollywood to play the female lead. Accounts of her departure differ. Some say she fought with Siegel. Others report that the studio disapproved of her British accent. Barbara Eden replaced Steele and at least one career was probably changed by the transaction. Another career was more likely altered by this film's perceived box-office failure, which appeared to prove -- despite the evidence on screen -- that Elvis Presley wouldn't work out as a dramatic actor.

Elvis fans who go into this film blind can only be stunned by what they see. I don't watch Presley's films as a rule, but I have to imagine that nothing else he made was as violent and downbeat as Flaming Star -- his second picture after his return from military service. In 1960, it wasn't yet implausible that Presley would evolve into a star equally capable of dramatic and musical work, like Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra. A precedent existed for casting young pop singers in westerns, but Ricky Nelson didn't have to carry Rio Bravo by himself. Nor was Elvis so obliged; Siegel surrounded him with capable, veteran character actors, particularly John McIntire and Dolores Del Rio as his parents. The film doesn't prove Presley a master thespian, but he is entirely serviceable as a young man at times laconic, at times hotheaded, and eventually doomed.

Flaming Star is the story of the destruction of an American family. Pacer Burton (Presley) is the son of Sam and Neddy Burton (McIntire and Del Rio) and the half-brother of Clint (Steve Forrest), whose mother, Sam's first wife, apparently died in childbirth. The story is refreshingly free of the brother issues you might otherwise expect in such a film; the Burtons as a loving family unit are the heart of the film. But any hope for reconciliation between whites and natives the Burtons might represent is overwhelmed by the tide of white settlement and the desperation of native resistance. Neddy's Kiowa people are on the warpath, led by a new war chief, Buffalo Horn (Rodolfo Acosta). They treat the Burtons with respect, though many women in the tribe despise Neddy, but they attack a party of neighbors leaving the birthday party at the Burtons' where Elvis sings his only onscreen song. L. Q. Jones takes a hatchet in the forehead in the encounter. As Buffalo Horn takes the fight to the whites, and the settlers demand to know where the Burtons stand, neutrality begins to seem impossible, though the Burtons insist on it. They refuse demands from both sides to take sides, earning scorn from almost everyone.

Things fall apart rapidly after a crazed massacre survivor shoots Neddy on her way back from a visit to the Kiowa camp. The Burton men are outraged when the local white doctor initially refuses to treat Neddy under pressure from his neighbors. Pacer and Clint angrily force the issue by taking the doctor's daughter hostage, but Neddy has already seen the flaming star of death and gone wandering into the desert. The doctor claims that Neddy's would was hopeless all along, but a furious Pacer is barely restrained from killing him. This travesty proves to him that the whites will always hate him, so he decides to join Buffalo Horn. His father refuses to stop him; his grief only solidifies his unconditional love for his second son. McIntire has a heartbreaking little scene with Forrest after Presley leaves when he explains that he'd started out alone, except for infant Clint, and after everything they're all alone again. But it gets worse.

Takin' care of business: Elvis Presley in Flaming Star.

Kiowas are converging in Buffalo Horn's territory, and not all are aware of the chief's truce with the Burtons. A random band takes Sam Burton for just another white target and takes him out, though not without a bitter fight from the old man. Discovering the body, Clint goes into battle, and in the confusion Pacer rescues him from hostiles. Learning of his father's death in turn in an admirably understated scene, Pacer sends an injured Clint into town and safety while he turns on the Kiowas. It may seem anticlimactic that Siegel denies us this ultimate showdown, but I'm not sure the actual final scene, in which Pacer makes a Shane-like farewell to his brother, would have the tragic power it does if we knew for certain exactly what had happened to him.

Above: 'Run, Forrest, run!' The finale of Flaming Star echoes Dolores Del Rio's fatal walkabout (below).

Siegel's direction is vast and lean like many of the best Fifties westerns. He makes impressive use of landscape to emphasize the Burtons' isolation and their ultimate helplessness against larger human and historical forces. The Burtons are just about the only sympathetic characters in the whole film, though Eden's character eventually overcomes her anger and mistrust of the Burtons. The ballyhoo make more of an Eden-Presley romance than there is on screen, at least in the film's present form. If anything, her character is Clint's girl, and both she and Clint are stunned to learn of Pacer's yearning for her. Nor is there any strong hint that Clint will find solace with her; he's last seen limping pathetically after the departing Pacer, the last vestige of family left to him. There's a sincere despair to this film that must have sent the first wave of Elvis fans reeling from theaters in dismay and probably sealed its fate with everyone else who hadn't already mistakenly dismissed a Presley western as fluff. Col. Parker would soon decree that his charge should only make musical comedies, with results known to all. A feeling that Flaming Star may have been Presley's last chance to make something more of himself in the movies may add to the despairing feel of the film today. Again, his is no great performance, but it is one of the few good ones he gave that really make you regret all the others. Presley aside, Siegel's western is worthy of its period, the golden age of the genre in Hollywood.

Tadashi Imai's REVENGE (Adauchi, 1964)

Ladies and Gentlemen! Our next bout: a death match! A grudge fight to a finish with no time limit! In this corner! The Kyoto Madman, the winner of his last two fights -- by fatality! -- Ezaki Shinpachi!

And in this corner!... Well, we'll get to that. But this is no way to introduce a samurai film, except that director Tadashi Imai and screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto invite you to do just that. This film, Imai's follow-up to his international prize-winner Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai, opens with the announcement of an officially-sanctioned duel between Shinpachi (Kinnosuke Nakamura, also from Bushido) and the latest challenger from the Okumo clan and the preparations for the big event. As the fighters meditate and worry, the organizers are setting up a reviewing stand and a picket fence to keep the expected rabble of spectators at a respectful distance. There's something disquieting about this almost immediately. We're not used to these duels of honor being treated as spectator sport. But Bushido proved Imai a debunker of heroic samurai mythos, and in Adauchi he and Hashimoto deconstruct the typical feud-and-duel storyline to demonstrate just how custom and self-interest make a mockery of the samurai ideal.

Imai slowly builds up the suspense as fight time approaches in the present by flashing back repeatedly to show how Shinpachi came to this point. The trouble began with a casual insult delivered by an Okumo scion as Shinpachi and his lower-ranking clan report for their customary military duty. The proud, reckless Shinpachi bristles when Okumo criticizes the dirt on his spear head. It can be polished clean with one wipe, he protests, and who says Okumo's own weapon doesn't gather dust on his off days? This just won't do. Shinpachi lacks the rank to talk to an Okumo like that, and Okumo demands satisfaction. They arrange to fight a clandestine duel to settle the issue, and in one of Imai's devices to deny us the conventional entertainment of samurai action, we never see the fight. Instead, we discover Shinpachi cleaning his blade by the river, and he directs the curious to the mortally-wounded Okumo.

Because the duel is unauthorized, both the Ezaki and Okumo clans are in legal jeopardy. They're liable to having their stipends confiscated by an eager feudal bureaucracy, but both clans resort to the insanity defense. Psychology in Tokugawa Japan not being what it'd become once the discipline was actually invented, the government has no real way to refute the claim. They let the matter drop on the understanding that the "insane" Shinpachi will be confined to a monastery. Meanwhile, the lack of liability on the late Okumo's part allows his estate to devolve upon his more talented brother Shume (Tetsuro Tamba), who decides that with the coast clear legally, he can settle scores with Shinpachi. He isn't going to get into trouble by fighting a duel, of course; he's just going to murder the bastard.

Tetsuro Tamba vs. Kinnosuke Nakamura

Shinpachi intercepts Shume on the road, and now we have a proper fight scene -- sort of. Shume is clearly the more skilled swordsman, but Shinpachi fights with desperation and raw strength, and he has a little bit of luck on his side. Needless to say, the news baffles the local administration: surely the Okumos can't say that two brothers were insane. What is it, catching? But instead of cracking down on the Okumo clan, the government presses for a settlement of their beef with Shinpachi. With the Ezaki clan's standing on the line, a deal is negotiated. The government will sanction a duel between Shinpachi and a younger Okumo brother -- but the fix will be in. To save his family's standing, Shinpachi will throw the fight, presenting no resistance to a clearly outmatched youngster. Unfortunately, while he's on the way to the makeshift arena, the terms of the fix are changed. Just in case Shinpachi changes his mind, young Okumo will be assisted by six top fighting retainers who'll soften Shinpachi up until Okumo can safely finish him off.

It's one thing to agree to do the job, as they say in professional wrestling, and another not to know ahead of time that they intend to make you bleed by hitting you with a real chair. Right off the bat, Shinpachi is disturbed to see and hear the jeering crowd that's formed to watch his humiliation. And when Okumo's assistants hit the ring, our hero, who hasn't seemed to have been entirely faking the crazy thing, simply snaps. He protests that assistance isn't necessary, and for him it is insult and injury, proving that the Okumo and the government don't trust him and really want to embarrass him before everyone. Under those circumstances, screw all agreements -- Shinpachi is going to fight for real....

Samurai movies are cool -- but Tadashi Imai seems to have dedicated himself to eliminating the cool from the genre to expose the cruelty, stupidity and suffering that define the ethos for him. While it's almost impossible to eliminate a certain inherent elegance to the swordplay that kills with one blow, Imai strives to do so by emphasizing the confusion and raw fear that would probably come to the surface when real people fought. If Nakamura appears to go over the top playing the increasingly crazed Shinpachi, it's probably necessary to drive home Imai's point. And when Nakamura gets to go on a typical final rampage, Imai makes clear that fear is a major factor in whatever success his enjoys. Even if you outnumber a guy by six or more to one, if he comes bellering at you with a bloodstained sword, you're probably going to be scared despite your security in numbers.

Because it's less of a stunt movie than the seven-part, seven-roles-for-Nakamura Bushido, Adauchi (do we really need another movie called Revenge?) is a superior movie in story construction and character development. It's not as much of a showcase for Nakamura, but he definitely gives the performance Imai wants, and overall Imai makes the impression he wants. He's not a flashy or gimmicky director but tells his story with pictorial clarity. He seems to prefer the controlled environment of a soundstage, but the art direction and black-and-white cinematography make the painted backdrops look more like craftsmanship than mere fakery. AnimEigo has made their new DVD of Adauchi available as a Netflix stream, but the transfer isn't perfect. You do get a sharp widescreen transfer, but the text annotations that AnimEigo often provides above the image are cut off at the top of the screen. That won't really impede your understanding of the story, but the annotations themselves may prove an annoyance to viewers unaccustomed to AnimEigo product. Samurai film fans who can ignore the annoyance should appreciate Imai's change of pace and critical stance toward the genre, and fans of Japanese film overall should appreciate his renewed outcry against the cruel codes of the past.

LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN (Uomini si nasce poliziotti si muore, 1976)

Fernando Di Leo regarded the trilogy of films for which he's best known as a director -- the "milieu" trilogy of Milano Calibro 9, Manhunt and The Boss -- as films noirs, continuing the American tradition's humane portrayal of criminals as tragic or sometimes sympathetic personalities. Those films stand out in stark contrast to the more popular Italian genre of polizieschi movies, in which criminals are usually portrayed as subhuman scum. But wherever Di Leo's heart lay, he still had to pay the bills. So after collaborating with two other writers on the story, he wrote the script for a tough-cop movie that would be directed by Ruggero Deodato, the jungle-terror specialist who would go on to make Cannibal Holocaust. You can tell that neither Di Leo nor Deodato has his heart in the project. That is, they don't seem to share the sincere conviction that drives the best of Italy's cop films. Instead of making a straight story of righteousness combating crime, they tried for black comedy, the joke being that the cops are barely better than criminals.

In fact, we learn that a computer profile of our heroes, Fred (Marc Porel) and Tony (Ray Lovelock) identified them as classic criminal types. It remains a mystery to their boss (Adolfo Celi) why they ever became cops. The answer, as revealed to us by implication, is that being cops empowers Fred and Tony to be thugs and bullies by siccing them on other criminals. You don't hear the sort of righteous indignation from these guys that you'd hear from Maurizio Merli, the mustachioed polizieschi icon, in films by Umberto Lenzi and others. They seem to fight crime just for kicks.

Di Leo and Deodato do what they can to stack the deck early, starting things off with a brutal and fatal mugging by two purse-snatching motorcyclists. These goons drag a bag's desperate owner until she brains herself against a streetlamp. After this atrocity, Fred and Tony ride into action. We're supposed to be angry enough at the muggers to stay interested in what proves an interminable motorcycle chase -- but when I describe the first action scene in a movie as interminable, you know we're in trouble. Fortunately, it ends with a wake-up call for the audience. The chase proper ends when the muggers ride their bike into the back of a truck, one of them dying on the spot, the other thrown out into the street. He's badly injured, but might have survived had not Fred or Tony -- to be honest, I don't remember which is which -- snaps his neck.

Our heroes are basically police terrorists. Their tactics range from thwarting a robbery by assassinating the perpetrators before the fact to annoying the local crime boss, "Bibi" Pasquini (an unenthusiastic Renato Salvatori or Rocco and His Brothers fame), by torching the luxury cars parked outside his high-stakes gambling den. They have two overriding mandates, to bring down Pasquini and get laid. They spend their office time harassing an openly contemptuous female officer, while intercourse proves an essential element of their interrogation technique -- at least when they interrogate attractive young women.

The big joke that develops toward the end is that their two objectives threaten to cancel each other out -- cancel them out, I should say. The climax sets them up in a deathtrap, from which they're too interested in their own climaxes to escape. Which will come first: la petit mort or the Big One?...

Basically, we're dealing with Starsky and Hutch with a license to kill. If that makes Uomini si nasce any funnier, more power to you. To me, it looks like writer and director didn't really have their heart in the comedy, either. The problem is that Porel and Lovelock aren't that funny. The whole joke of the film is that they're violent idiots, but comedy is neither Di Leo nor Deodato's strong suit. They come up with an absurd target-practice sequence in which Fred and Tony leap and roll through a series of ditches, repeatedly firing at cans located dangerously close to each other (the cops, not the cans). Like the motorcycle chase, this goes on too long before it turns into a proper action scene, and the creators clearly have no idea of how they might keep it funny. They get a little closer to the effect they want at the climax. Audiences will inevitably ask if our heroes can really be this stupidly horny as they scene drags on -- but whether it all pays off depends on how you want it to pay off, and I suspect a large part of the audience is bound to be disappointed.

And he strikes!...like Thunnn-derr-balll!

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man is newly available as a Netflix streaming video, along with an impressive number of Italian genre titles. This one is most likely not the highlight of the group, but Italian action fans who have a clear idea of what kind of film this is might still find it entertaining on an undemanding level. Even I got a little kick from seeing Adolfo Celi get to play a badass policeman, but whether that justifies 93 minutes of your time is not for me to say.

ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (1960)

After the neorealist movement won a foothold in America by providing reliably scandalous product for the nation's growing numbers of arthouses, the Italian film industry started firing the big guns. The movies, once noted for an ascetic modesty in their attention to ordinary folk, grew epic in length, and sometimes in scope, as acclaim fueled directors' ambition. Along with Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti was one of the biggest guns, matching Fellini's three-hour blockbuster La Dolce Vita with his own 176-minute monster while joining forces with his peer for the colossal portmanteau piece Boccaccio '70. Unlike Fellini, Visconti appeared with Rocco e i suoi fratelli to remain true to neorealism's ideal focus on common people, though he'd follow Rocco with a still-more stupendous historical epic about an aristocrat, The Leopard. However, Visconti had preceded Rocco with a modernization of Dostoevsky, White Nights, and Rocco itself retains a lot of the "loose, baggy monster" quality of 19th century Russian novels. In fact, Rocco and His Brothers reminds me most of another master's questionable attempt to modernize and relocate Dostoevsky, Akira Kurosawa's The Idiot. Besides length, both films share an arguably Dostoevskian obsession with the depths of human abjection and self-destructive passion.

There goes the neighborhood; the Parondis in Milan. A neighbor's one-word description? "Africa!"

Long film, simple story: Rocco Parondi (Alain Delon in one of his breakthrough roles) and his three brothers, along with their mother (Oscar-winner Katina Paxinou) quit their southern hardscrabble farm to move to Milan, where eldest son Vincenzo already has a job and a fiancee. They immediately create a scene at Vincenzo's engagement party when the matriarch expects to move in with her full brood. Instead, they get thrown out into the street, and Vincenzo has to scramble to get them temporary housing. Starting with odd jobs like shoveling snow to earn their way, each brother ventures forth to seek his fortune. Rocco takes a variety of jobs and serves a stint in the army before following brother Simone (Renato Salvatori) into a boxing career. While Simone proved a gutless tomato can as a fighter, Rocco rises to contention.

Alain Delon and Annie Girardot in good times and bad.

Rocco also outdoes Simone as a suitor for Nadia (Annie Girardot), a prostitute who works the projects, but Simone isn't going to take that humiliation lying down. He and his lowlife droogs beat Rocco up while Simone rapes Nadia in front of him. While Mama Parondi bemoans how the wicked woman is ruining her boys, Rocco effectively surrenders Nadia to Simone out of some misplaced sense of family responsibility. This solves nothing. Simone seeks deeper and deeper into gambling debt while a contemptuous Nadia flounces around the house making life miserable for Mama. Things get so bad that the other brothers are willing to raise funds for Simone to get him out of town, but the offer only goads the lousy layabout to ask for more money. He also gets dangerously antsy about his future with Nadia. The film builds to a double climax, cutting from Rocco's big fight to Simone's shocking showdown with his girl, before resolving itself into one more family conflict as responsible Alfa Romeo worker Ciro (Max Cartier) tries to make sure Simone gets what he deserves while his mother and brothers still desperately try to protect their kin....

Who's crucifying who?

Rocco's length is debatably justified by Visconti's novelistic ambition, but I couldn't help thinking that Warner Bros. could have told the same story just as well in half the time. It seems to be regarded as socially conscious in some essential way, as if "the city" or "modernity" is to blame for the Parondis' plight, but I'm not sure that Visconti himself actually felt that way about it. I detect no more innate social consciousness, much less any political consciousness, than I would in some American counterpart film like A Streetcar Named Desire or God's Little Acre -- I thought it safe to cover a lot of territory. As with many a "white trash" saga, the portrayal of human wretchedness and depravity seems to be an end unto itself. The climax of the Simone-Nadia storyline certainly seems designed to set a new standard for violence in an otherwise-respectable production, and that scene helped sell Rocco as a scandalous yet pretentious shocker when it invaded the U.S. in the summer of 1962.

All this being said, Rocco is a pictorially solid and generally well-acted film that satisfies my virtual-tourist urge with its trip through the landscape of 1960 Milan. While the title identifies the film as an early showcase for Delon, Renato Salvatori actually makes the strongest acting impression. The script obliges him to go over the top, especially when he bawls at the end like a big guilty baby, but he is absolutely convincing as the bum of the brothers. Given how much Rocco has to react to Simone's troubles, Salvatori really is the center of a movie that should have been called Simone and his Brothers, if not Simone and his Enablers -- or, to be more fair to all the actors and more Dostoevskian yet, The Brothers Parondi. The film's faults are those of excess, along with a sense that there's more there than there actually is. But there is a lot of indisputably strong stuff here, and despite my complaints (unusual for me) about the length the film did not bore me. It only leaves you with the nagging question of whether it had to be as long as it was, but you might still go away thinking it a great film.