All posts by Pete Trbovich

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ALICE OR THE LAST ESCAPADE (1977)

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DIRECTED BY: Claude Chabrol

FEATURING: Sylvia Kristel, Charles Vanel, Fernand Ledoux

PLOT: After leaving her husband, Alice Caroll’s travels leave her stranded during a storm; she ends up at a mysterious mansion populated by odd characters, discovering that she can’t leave.

Still from Alice or the Last Escapade (1977)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: Your present author stumbled upon Alice or the Last Escapade on Tubi, and I could not shake the feeling that “366 Weird Movies should have this one already.” That’s because Alice or the Last Escapade brings to mind several movies already in our canon. First, the sparse “” elements give the story a thin fairy tale flavor. French director Chabrol (himself often described as “the French ”) dedicates the film to the memory of Fritz Lang. We have a classic ontological mystery in which a character is trapped by strange forces without explanation. A few reviews of this movie even compare it to ‘s The Exterminating Angel. I can see that, but more importantly, there is one specific movie on The List, a seminal cult classic, which I dare not mention lest I spoil the movie, because Alice or the Last Escapade has the exact same plot and ending.

COMMENTS: If you ask me, the best comparison for Alice is an hour-and-a-half long “Twilight Zone” episode. Alice Caroll (Sylvia Kristel) leaves her annoying bore of a husband to set out on the road. Driving at night, she finds herself in the classic Euro-Gothic plot: stranded at night with car trouble during a storm, forced to seek refuge at a strange mansion. The inhabitants of said mansion welcome Alice and insist she stay overnight, even offering to fix her car for free. But in the morning, Alice tries to leave, only to be confronted by reality-warping events that prevent her departure. There’s a “broken” clock which starts up at odd hours and seems to control other events in the house. The same view is visible out the front door and the back. She tries to trace her way around the property wall only to discover that the gate has vanished. When she does drive around, all roads lead back to the mansion. Meanwhile the mansion is populated by oddball characters who speak in riddles and have odd rules about conversation, such as not responding to any direct question.

The “Alice in Wonderland” elements are kept to a minimum. We have the protagonist’s name, of course; the checkered floor tiles in some rooms suggest a chessboard; a gentleman dressed all in white confronts Alice in the surrounding woods. Alice’s meals and tea are left prepared for her by an unseen entity, but aren’t specifically labeled “eat me” and “drink me.” The wake/dance party she encounters stands in for a “mad tea party.” Among elements definitely not drawn from Lewis Carroll, we get a single nude scene, when Alice gets lectured by a ghostly voice in the bath. (This blink-and-you-miss-it scene is there just to remind people that Sylvia Kristel used to play Emmanuelle.) Otherwise, there are no hints of sexuality to the proceedings; this movie seems designed as a vehicle for Kristel to demonstrate her advanced acting chops—which aren’t much to write home about, truth be told. But at least her character is no pushover. Alice quickly learns the arbitrary rules of her captivity, and even turns the mansion inhabitant’s own conversational rules back at them, as she schemes to figure out the situation and find loopholes.

Alice or the Last Escapade did not fare well at the box office, and is seen today as a one-off venture for director Chabrol, who had an extensive and otherwise successful career. Actress Kristel stated in interviews that she thought the movie would have fared better with more nudity. I disagree; the movie would have fared better if it took more chances and pulled out the weird stops. For being made in 1977, it feels like a much later movie made from parts of other popular weird cinema. As it stands, this is more of a slow-burn “comfort weird” movie, to be enjoyed in the good faith that it treads ground already familiar to those who have extensively explored our canon.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

 “In the incredibly varied oeuvre of director Claude Chabrol there are few films as bizarre as Alice ou la dernière fugue, a dark, hallucinatory fairy tale in which fantasy and reality become intertwined to chilling effect… a haunting excursion into an Escher-like dreamscape from which there is no possibility of escape.”–James Travers, FrenchFilms.org

CAPSULE: THE BLISS OF MRS. BLOSSOM (1968)

DIRECTED BY: Joseph McGrath

FEATURING: Shirley MacLaine, Richard Attenborough, James Booth

PLOT: Mrs. Blossom, the bored wife of an eccentric and oblivious bra manufacturer, hides her lover in the attic.

Still from The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom (1968)

COMMENTS: Oh joy, a ‘60s European sex comedy! Wait, this can’t be right, where are the boobies? (Checks label.) Oh damn and blast, we brought home a British sex comedy by mistake! That means not even a peep of skin, only coy hints of sex, and a plot that’s rather stingy with the comedy too. Mrs. Blossom is an amusing and light-hearted romp, though, and a quaint period piece for die-hard mondo-60s collectors. Just be advised, even though Shirley MacLaine headlines, her performance here is far from Terms of Endearment caliber—she almost stifles a yawn between lines. As for Attenborough, he does his mutton-chopped best to liven things up a notch. Presumably the paychecks kept the cast in tea and crumpets until they could wend their way to loftier productions.

Meanwhile the sets do most of the acting. Beautifully shot at screwy camera angles in psychedelic Technicolor, the Blossoms’ mansion is decorated like it was intended as a water-colored playhouse for children’s  theater, while outside, London has never looked more swinging. McGrath partitions the pedestrian narrative between slices of abrupt, surreal chaos: gauzy garden-swing dream sequences, Three Musketeers homages, a St. George and dragon fantasy. And just when you’re about to give up on the movie, it pulls a cameo out of its hip pocket (Cleese was paid by the microsecond to portray an unhelpful postal clerk, and then was gone before he could outshine the rest of the production).

While Mr. Blossom (Attenborough) is a workaholic bra magnate, Mrs. Blossom (MacLaine) is a listless trophy wife and part-time portrait artist. When her sewing machine breaks down, the factory sends ‘round the blandly charming repairman Ambrose Tuttle (James Booth), whom Mrs. Blossom undertakes to seduce—but actually adopts, as one would a stray kitten—over an improbable game of pool. She later hides him in her home’s attic, which is spacious enough to furnish as a second home. There the situation stabilizes for years, while Mr. Blossom remains obliviously cuckolded. He is more fixated on his music fetish—not that he plays music, but he air-conducts on the balcony to prerecorded opera. Meanwhile, a sewing machine repairman’s disappearance is apparently noteworthy enough to attract detectives, investigating in a sputtering sidecar of a subplot.

So far this film doesn’t sound very invigorating, but its saving grace is an air of magical realism that feels like it might have been ad-libbed by the crew on the spot. Scotland Yard detective Dylan (UK acting legend ) turns in a campy performance of dogged investigation while remaining just inches shy of exposing the infidelity. But it’s when we meet Mr. Blossom’s shrink, Dr. Hieronimous Taylor (UK game show host Bob Monkhouse) that we get a real glimpse of weirdness. Dr. Taylor’s office interior set, equipped with piles of vaguely-threatening cyberpunk devices and animated neon pub signs twinkling and spinning in the background, would not look out of place in A Clockwork Orange. Mr. Blossom is seeing a shrink because, you see, he keeps hearing strange noises in his home—due to Ambrose, who is as stealthy as a brass band falling down stairs—and noticing that things keep disappearing, so of course he must be going daft.

While The Bliss of Mrs Blossom isn’t going to top anyone’s weird movie list, the surreal bits and whimsical plot threads accumulate to ultimately charm its way into quirky movie territory. Between the fantasy sequences with a romanticized theme and the gadget-filled psychiatrist’s office, you might be tempted to think Terry Gilliam saw this on his way to making Brazil. You can tell that somebody loved this movie and had ambitions for it that it could not deliver, but it’s so sweet and cheery, even to the end, that you can’t stay disappointed in it. Deep and meaningful cinema this isn’t, but it’s an interesting page in 1960s UK mod film history.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Frankly, the whole film was a mess, a colourful mess but all over the place just the same.. The jokes were mild at best, but in the hope that we wouldn’t notice they were placed in a selection of near-psychedelic visuals… Joseph McGrath worked up a selection of visuals which truly took advantage of the Technicolor, and in opening up the play to downright oddness, this was quite something to behold, if not great at all.”–Graeme Clark, The Spinning Image

 

 

VIDEO CAPSULE: LEGACY OF SATAN (1974)

A rare (our first, in fact) video review. If these prove popular we’ll make more! For hilariously campy viewing at your next Halloween party, please ask for Legacy of Satan (1974), a low-budget devil cult movie adapted by Deep Throat‘s from a script originally intended for a hardcore porn production. Review by “Penguin” Pete Trbovich, narrated by Giles Edwards.

CAPSULE: PUFNSTUF (1970)

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DIRECTED BY: Hollingsworth Morse

FEATURING: Jack Wild, Billie Hayes, , ‘Mama’ Cass Elliot,

PLOT: Stranded with his magic flute on Living Island, young Jimmy must team up with the isle’s magical minions to defeat a witch who will do anything to get the instrument.

Still from Pufnstuf (1970)

COMMENTS: Beloved and recognized by millions, the characters of ‘s signature TV series H.R. Pufnstuf (1969-1970) get their proper due in this feature film. Not only do we have many of the same core cast members from the series, but the TV series director helms the film; it was even shot on some of the same sets from the series. So we would expect this film to just be an extended episode, and it sort of is. It’s more of an encapsulation of the series, complete with beginning backstory and with several songs crammed in. This film’s release date (June 1969) is only a few months older than your humble author (September). It is therefore fitting that a Generation X native is here to guide you through the wild wacky Krofft universe, filled with sapient sea monsters, flying saucers, talking hats, mad scientists, and families lost in the Jurassic Era. In Pufnstuf‘s case, we get a whole magical island called “Living Island” populated by the titular Mayor dragon (voiced by Roberto Gamonet, a departure from series regular Lennie Weinrib) and besieged by a wicked witch named Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo (Billie Hayes). The primary departure from the series the introduction of members of Witchiepoo’s, ah, coven, the “Witch’s Council,” with the flabbergasting casting combo of Cass Elliot and Martha Raye. Apparently witches have an authoritarian political structure, which might well have been a nod to Samantha Stephens’ supernatural lodge in the TV series Bewitched.

But leaving aside the matter of occult sorority organization, the plot is still formulaic, within its universe. Jimmy (the late Jack Wild) is kicked out of his school band in the first few minutes of the movie, which is the only interaction we see him have with the normal world. Next thing you know, his flute talks, a boat talks, and Jimmy sails to Living Island where everything else talks too. Suddenly Witchiepoo, cruising on a curiously steampunk broom that is prone to run out of gas and stall in the sky, appears, wanting Jimmy’s magic flute in the worst way. She attacks, Mayor Pufnstuf valiantly comes to the rescue despite never having seen this kid before in his life, and the whole plot becomes talking-flute MacGuffin. The Boss Witch calls on the “hot line,” a phone stored within a pot-belly stove so that it fries the hands of whoever answers it, to announce that the annual witches’ convention is to be hosted by our gal. So Witchiepoo is under pressure to do her union proud.

Show-stopper moments include: Team Living Island raiding Team Witchiepoo’s castle dressed as sham firefighters on pretense of extinguishing a fire (because that’s the first idea that popped into Continue reading CAPSULE: PUFNSTUF (1970)