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Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN STARRING GEORGE REEVES: SEASON 2 EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS

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Part I of “The Adventures of Superman” episode guide is here. Part II is here.

This article originally appeared in a slightly different form at Alfred Eaker’s The Blue Mahler.

“Five Minutes to Doom” (dir. Tommy Carr) is the introductory episode of season two of “The Adventures of Superman.” Already, it is a slicker product than the previous season and, as expected, there are gains and losses. It has lost none of its grit, even with a new, bourgeoisie Lois Lane.

“Five Minutes to Doom” is a noir cliffhanger with Clark Kent using his abilities as a human lie detector test (gauging the heartbeat of a convicted killer) to determine the man’s sincerity. Someone doesn’t want Kent and gal pal Lois Lane uncovering the truth behind a corrupt contract deal, and attempts to assassinate the cub reporters. Lane condescendingly praises Kent for his out-of-character bravery.

Reportedly, director Carr was hard on Noel Neill, the new Lois Lane, whom he found lacking compared to the much missed . defended Neill, and while that’s an admirable example of cast camaraderie, it’s difficult not to sympathize with Carr’s point of view. Neill claimed that she was merely playing herself, but that may be part of the problem with her portrayal of Lane, who often comes across as a Sarah Palin-styled Avon lady huffing and puffing her way through the newsroom, chastising Kent for not being man enough even though we never see his alleged cowardice. Occasionally offsetting this unattractive trait is a winning perky quality, which renders Neill’s Lane consistently uneven.

Surviving the elements, Superman saves the day at the last moment by breaking through a prison wall to halt an electric chair execution. Stylish and moving like quicksilver, this is a helluva opening to a legendary season, despite a fidgety debut from Neill.

“The Big Squeeze” (dir. Carr) is noir for the 1950s family. Dan Grayson has received a Citizen of the Year award from the Daily Planet. Alas, Dan has a past that comes to put the “big squeeze” on him. Kent is obsessively driven to right wrongs and find/allow redemption. (Obsession and redemption are key dual themes in season two).

Still from "The Man Who Could Read Minds" from "The Adventures of Superman"“The Man Who Could Read Minds” (dir. Carr): Kent, Jimmy Olsen, and Lane attend a nightclub act that features a phony mind-reading swami. It leads them to a phantom burglar. The writing is straight out of the 1940s radio drama program tradition. It’s a well-paced, well-acted, and a stylishly suspenseful entry. Reeves steps Continue reading THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN STARRING GEORGE REEVES: SEASON 2 EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN STARRING GEORGE REEVES: SEASON 1 EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS (PART ONE)

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This article originally appeared in a slightly different form at Alfred Eaker’s The Blue Mahler.

Today, few seem to pay mind to the artists, writers or creators of comic book characters. When Denny Stephens and I walked into Denny White’s comic book shop as Indiana adolescents, we immediately knew—without looking at the credits—if a book was penciled by Jack Kirby, Frank Robbins, Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko,  Mike Ploog, Curt Swan or Wayne Boring. In their place now, a bland homogeneity permeates both the world of comics and the shops which market them. One book looks the same as the next, blending without seams, shorn of rough edges, entry points, atmosphere, originality, color, or inherent personality. One could say the same regarding the recent spate of films based on DC characters (not so with their television work, including animation where they rule their Marvel rivals. On the big screen, Marvel does it better). While the 1950s Television Superman was nowhere near as imaginative as stories being cranked out by Otto Binder in Superman Magazines (TV didn’t have the budget or, still in its infancy, the know how) the first season of The Adventures of Superman is something of a silver age within itself.

, , Jack Larson, John Hamilton, Robert Shane, Tommy Carr and each put an stamp on the characters and episodes, a personalized milieu and individuality that today is alien to an audience whose primary concern towards character tends to Biblical fidelity and adulation.

For many, George Reeves remains the quintessential portrayal of Clark Kent and his alter ego, Superman. It’s not out of nostalgia, or because he was the first actor to portray the pulp character. In fact, he wasn’t the first at all. That honor belongs to Kirk Alyn who starred in the serials Superman (1948) and Atom Man vs. Superman (1950). Alyn, who interpreted Kent as a kind of bumbling Jimmy Stewart character, simply doesn’t inspire. That lack of inspiration isn’t just limited by the serial’s quality: certainly, many of the later television and big screen incarnations were equally poor in their writing and execution. Rather, it’s due to Alyn’s Kent, who set the blueprint for the later Christopher Reeve performance. Kent really isn’t Kent. He’s Superman, and the newspaper paper reporter is just a façade.

Adventures of Superman (TV Series, 1952-2958) It’s hardly a secret that George Reeves had no love for playing a role that later actors would kill for. For Reeves, this was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Not only was he playing a little boy’s pulp comic book character who wore underwear outside of his pants, but he had been reduced to television. Like many actors of his time, including Alyn, who had refused to repeat the role for TV, Reeves was suspicious of the new medium. It was called small screen for a reason, Continue reading THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN STARRING GEORGE REEVES: SEASON 1 EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS (PART ONE) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

CALVARY (2014) AND I CONFESS (1953)

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John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary was one of 2014’s best films, with  a central performance that is authentic in the rarest of ways. is a welcome throwback to a specialized breed of cinematic actors: big, erudite men (Robert Shaw was such an actor). Gleeson began his acting career  at a young age, appearing in the plays of Samuel Beckett and William Shakespeare. He was an English teacher for over a decade before embarking on a film career. Naturally, he has specialized in playing Irish patriarchs, mentors and historical figures, which makes his casting as Father James, a potential martyr, shrewd.

Traditionally, the role of a Catholic priest has been thought of as an actor’s plum. It is easy to see why, especially in the contemporary world. The Roman Catholic priest, with his vows of  poverty, chastity, and obedience, has willfully chosen a subculture that is shockingly in direct opposition to the precepts of modernism’s worldview. The priest believes, whether he inevitably lives up to it or not, that he has an existential calling. He does not take the honor unto himself. Rather, he regards that his is a vocation called by something inward. His rejection of materialism is, hypothetically, inclusive. Capital, desire, and ego, theoretically are tenets of a status quo path that he has chosen to reject. The priesthood is the quintessential revolt against all that which is temporal.

Still from I Confess (1953)‘s I Confess (1953) features a performance by Montgomery Clift, as Father Michael Logan, which takes the psychology of the priestly vocation to an icy extreme. Clift’s performance, born of primordial method acting, parallels the film’s inert aesthetic.

Robert Burks’ shimmering cinematography exudes a Genesis-like potency. This, combined with Clift’s acting achievement, rendered I Confess a cult favorite among New Wave filmmakers and French critics.

American critics and audiences found it a more curious affair. It is akin to Gabriel Fauré’s music. Its appeal is primarily provincial; so subtle that invoking its aesthetic content proves to be a task.  Critics deemed this theological drama from the Jesuit-schooled Hitchcock too inaccessible, an inside affair amidst the director’s populist oeuvre. With introverted themes of Eden-esque transgressions, annihilation of carnality, and dogmatic devotion, I Confess was too bound in the interior of an orthodox landscape. Had Hitchcock’s film taken a more commercial approach, Western reception would have been considerably broader. Local critics predominantly panned Continue reading CALVARY (2014) AND I CONFESS (1953) →

Canonically Weird (The List)

170. GLEN OR GLENDA (1953)

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“Some argue that this kind of thing puts Ed Wood into the company of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí.

Should we buy this argument? Pull the string!”–IMDB Glen or Glenda FAQ

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Ed Wood, Jr. (as Daniel Davis), Dolores Fuller, Timothy Farrell,

PLOT: A transvestite is found dead, a suicide. Seeking to understand more about this phenomenon, a police inspector visits a psychiatrist who explains transvestism to him using the example of Glen, a heterosexual man who is tormented by the question of whether he should reveal his passion for cross-dressing to his fiancée. Meanwhile, a sinister, omniscient “scientist” (played by Bela Lugosi) occasionally appears to cryptically comment on the action (“pull the string!”)

Still from Glen or Glenda? (1953)
BACKGROUND:

  • Producer George Weiss wanted to make a film to exploit the then-current case of Christine Jorgensen (born George William Jorgensen), one of the first men to have successful sex-reassignment surgery. According to legend, Ed Wood convinced Weiss that he was the right man to direct the picture because he was a transvestite in his private life and understood gender confusion. The resulting film, shot in just four days, ended up being more about transvestism than sex-change surgery.
  • Against Wood’s wishes, Weiss inserted bondage-themed imagery into the dream sequence to give the film a dash more sex.
  • Wood himself plays the transvestite Glen (and Glenda) under the pseudonym Daniel Davis.
  • In his own life, Wood did not take the advice he gave his character in Glen or Glenda to honestly discuss his desire to wear women’s clothes with his betrothed. Wood’s first wife had their marriage annulled in 1955, after Ed surprised her by wearing ladies’ undergarments to their honeymoon.
  • This is the first of three collaborations between Wood and then down-on-his-luck and opiate-addicted Bela Lugosi. Three of Lugosi’s final four credits were Wood films.
  • Some reviews of Glen or Glenda refer to Lugosi’s character as “the Spirit” rather than “the Scientist”; were there two separate sets of credits, each with a different name for the character?
  • Wood’s 1963 novel “Killer in Drag” features a transvestite character named Glen whose alter-ego is named Glenda.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Such a wealth of possibilities! What about the hairy Satan who inexplicably shows up at Glen and Barbara’s dream wedding? And who can forget Bela Lugosi, yelling nonsense at the viewer while his angry face is superimposed over a herd of stampeding buffalo? The iconic image, however, is Wood’s intended emotional climax: in a ridiculously touching gesture of unconditional acceptance, Glen’s girlfriend Barbara strips off her angora sweater and hands it to the wide-eyed transvestite.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: A narratively-knotted 1950s pro-transvestite pseudo-documentary, told in naively earnest rhetoric via a wandering structure that includes flashbacks inside of flashbacks, would have made for a worthwhile oddity in itself. But throw in Bela Lugosi as a one-man Greek chorus reciting fractured fairy tales, and include a fourteen-minute dream sequence mixing Freudian symbolism, bargain-basement Expressionism, bondage, and a guest appearance by the Devil and you achieve incomparable weirdness, the way only Ed Wood could serve it up—on a bed of angora.


Clip from Glen or Glenda

COMMENTS: Ed Wood had a secret, and it’s not just that he liked the feel of silk panties under his rough trousers. Transvestism, in a way, was the Continue reading 170. GLEN OR GLENDA (1953) →

Canonically Weird (The List)

161. THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T (1953)

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“As to who was most responsible for this debaculous fiasco, I will have nothing more to say until all the participants have passed away, including myself.” –Theodore Geisel on The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

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DIRECTED BY: Roy Rowland

FEATURING: Tommy Rettig, Hans Conried, Peter Lind Hayes, Mary Healy

PLOT: Fatherless Bart’s well-meaning mother forces him to practice the piano when he would rather be playing outside like a normal boy. He falls asleep and dreams of an institute ruled over by the dictatorial piano teacher Dr. Terwilliger, who keeps his mother in a hypnotic bondage and plans to enslave 500 boys to play his massive piano. With the help of a plumber, Bart must thwart the evil Dr. T and his henchmen and bring his mom back to her senses. Still from The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)

BACKGROUND:

  • The script and lyrics were written by Theodor Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss). The first draft he submitted reportedly weighed in at 1,200 pages (100 pages would be an average script length).
  • Geisel disowned the film after it bombed at the box office, and refused to mention it in his biography.
  • Hans Conried said that eleven musical numbers were cut before the final release.
  • In “The Elevator Song,” the stanza referring to the “Third Floor Dungeon” was cut out of the film after the initial screenings (and does not appear on television screening or home video versions). The original lyrics read “Third floor dungeon: Household appliances. Spike beds, electric chairs, gas chambers, roasting pots, and snapping devices.” It’s speculated that the reference to “gas chambers” was deemed inappropriate in a movie released so soon after the Holocaust.
  • Producer Stanley Kramer is rumored to have directed some of the sequences himself.
  • Frederick Hollander’s compositions were nominated for a “Best Scoring of a Musical Picture” Oscar.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is saturated with surreal Seussian imagery, from roller skating Siamese twins linked by their beards to an elevator operator with no nipples and no face. Even the uniform Dr. Terwilliger requires Bart and the boys to wear—a simple blue beanie with five yellow fingers pointing skyward—is a candidate for most bizarrely memorable image. Throwing up our hands in despair, we’ll go with the obvious choice: the mile-long, two-tiered winding keyboard that the diabolical doctor plans to make his 500 charges play.

THREE WEIRD THINGS: Hypnotic whammy battle, underground musical cacophony, executioner elevator operator [selections provided by reader “Gargus” as part of a 2016 contest]

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: In books like “Horton Hears a Who” and “The Cat in the Hat,” Dr. Seuss’ fuzzy characters speaking singsong nonsense and cavorting across landscapes with implausible fauna make for children’s classics. But imagery that’s merely whimsical on paper in ink turns positively weird when fleshed out in Technicolor, with live actors singing and dancing. The backdrop of Cold War paranoia, before which flits a fey villain with a fabulous wardrobe, only adds to the oddness.

Joe Dante on the reissue trailer for The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

COMMENTS: Theodore Geisel, the Philistine, notably hated The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, considering it an embarrassment and a low point in his Continue reading 161. THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T (1953) →