The Most Dangerous Game

This 1932 thriller is based on the award-winning short story of the same name by Richard Connell, and has been remade dozens of times in film and television. People are marooned on an island where an eccentric lives. He is a big game hunter and has always wanted to hunt the most dangerous game of all - man. Yes, it's an old story, but this is the first time it was done.

An RKO film produced by Merian C. Cooper, The Most Dangerous Game was shot concurrently with King Kong, easy to do as both settings are jungle islands. This flick even stars Robert Armstrong and Fay Wray, and also features an original score by Max Steiner. The cast also includes Joel McCrea, Noble Johnson, Leslie Banks as the villainous Count Zaroff, and Buster Crabbe in an uncredited role.

While there's no big gorilla in this one, it's full of atmospheric thrills and horror. The castle's door knocker alone is enough to give one nightmares, and Zaroff's Cossack manservant Ivan (Johnson) is pretty fearsome as well. The use of shadow reminds me of later Val Lewton work, perhaps inspired by the German silents.

Fay Wray's character here is a bit more sophisticated than Kong's Ann Darrow, and Robert Armstrong is the comic relief as a drunken delight. I always liked him best in this kind of role. McCrea and Banks are quite suited to the black and white hero and villain. And it's fun watching them tromp through the same sets from Kong.

I love the old horrors from the 1930s from RKO and Universal, and King Kong is one of my favorite films, so this is a great companion piece to that. Recommended.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Nothing Lasts Forever ~ You may or may not have heard of this obscure 1984 film with Bill Murray. Shot in black and white and shelved by MGM, it was never officially released in theaters or to video retail. Directed by fellow "Saturday Night Live" alum Tom Schiller (remember the brilliant Schiller's Reel?), it has remained unseen for decades but is now, possibly only temporarily available on YouTube.

Ostensibly a Bill Murray vehicle, it stars the immediately post-Gremlins Zach Galligan as a young man, Adam, who returns to New York from Europe with dreams of becoming an artist. The trouble is that America has been through hard times and some things have changed. A transit strike has put the Port Authority in control of New York City in an almost fascist state. Artists are frowned upon and Adam is put to work at the Holland Tunnel for a wacky boss played by Dan Aykroyd.

With me so far? 'Cause it's about to get weird, and yes, weirder than it already is. After Adam is kind to a beggar, the kindness is returned when the man reveals that there is a secret underground of bums that really control the world. After a truly disturbing purification process, during which we go from black and white temporarily to pseudo sepia colorization color, the masters of the world give Adam a mission - to bring art to the moon where he will meet his soulmate.

Adam goes back up to black and white NYC where no one believes him. And then he gets on a bus to the moon, where a young, pre-arrogant, and not-as-grumpy Bill Murray is his possibly sinister sky host. Look quick or you'll miss Larry 'Bud' Melman. Once on the moon, we're in pseudo-color again. But even on the moon things are not as they seem.

This New York City is like a cross between Fellini Paris and Hell here, and in that way, the black and white is used to good effect, very German Expressionist, with just a touch of Val Lewton and David Lynch. The tour of the NY art scene is both surreal and far too real, imagine Andy Warhol in 1920s Germany, bizarre. There are many bits lifted from old movies that may have had something to do with its non-release, rights problems, perhaps?

Zach Galligan, as in Gremlins, does a great It's a Wonderful Life Jimmy Stewart, perhaps much more naive. Lauren Tom, who this writer knows from voice acting in the DC Comics Animated Universe, is his lovely lunar soulmate. The amazingly named Apollonia Van Ravenstein is also quite good. Also look for Eddie Fisher, Imogene Coco, Sam Jaffe, and Mort Sahl.

Perhaps the reason Nothing Lasts Forever was not released was its pre-Tim Burton oddity or its painfully non-mainstreamness. Maybe the studio didn't know what it was - scifi, drama, comedy, period piece, musical? Even I'm not sure. It certainly is intriguing and worth a look while you can. Check it out.

Night Tide

Night Tide ~ This 1961 black and white Dennis Hopper starrer seems to be the pseudo inspiration for Splash, and maybe The Little Mermaid as well - as if they were directed by David Lynch.

Linda Lawson is Mora, the mermaid and Dennis is Johnny, the naïve (and blond!) sailor on shore leave, feeling very much the fish out of water at the local beatnik scene where he meets the girl. A courtship begins and it turns out that Mora dresses as a mermaid at the local beach amusement pier. She's as wacky as he is naïve. It seems that Mora's last two boyfriends washed ashore dead. What is most bizarre is how casual everyone is when they inform Johnny of this fact. The ending is just plain messed up.

The film was written and directed by Curtis Harrington who went on to mediocre fame in the late 1970s with the telemovie Devil Dog: Hound from Hell. Lots of wonderful atmospherics and use of shadows here, obviously Harrington was influenced by Val Lewton, and in turn as I noted above, he might have very well influenced Lynch as well. He does quite a good job here however with the seeming special effects budget of a fry cook.