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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: HANZO THE RAZOR: SWORD OF JUSTICE (1972)

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Goyôkiba

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DIRECTED BY: Kenji Mishumi

FEATURING: Shintarō Katsu, Yukiji Asaoka, Mari Atsumi, Ko Nishimura

PLOT: In Tokugawa-era Japan, a cop is willing to step outside the law to take down some of the most nefarious criminals in the realm, using his unique brand of interrogation and enforcement to get at the truth.

Still from hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice (1972)

COMMENTS: “Dirty Harry” Callahan. John Shaft. “Popeye” Doyle. They all hit screens within months of each other during the year of the loose-cannon cop, a new archetype in law enforcement that arose out of the ashes of both the peace-and-love 60s and the Hays Production Code. It would be entirely appropriate to welcome Hanzo “the Razor” into these ranks. He’s a lawman who doesn’t play by the rules. He’s the one honest man in a corrupt world, and he doesn’t care who he pisses off, even his own bosses. Women love him, men fear him. And most importantly, as he walks the streets of Edo, he’s accompanied by a kickin’ funk soundtrack. (Kunihiko Murai’s score would be perfectly at home on the streets of Harlem.) Sure, his adventures might be taking place 200-300 years in the past, but a lawman who doesn’t let the law get in his way is timeless.

It’s entertaining to watch how closely the film applies the conventions of the 70s rogue cop to this hard-bitten samurai. He talks back to his superiors, who repeatedly remind him how close he is to getting himself kicked off the force. He has a group of ex-cons he employs to help him gather information and plot against his opponents. He even has a solitary lifestyle, with a small home bereft of creature comforts, and a series of elaborate booby traps to foil would-be assassins. In a world of venal authorities who cling to their power and advantage, Hanzo seems like the faultless icon of righteousness we all need.

Of course, such a perfect hero does suck some of the suspense out of his adventures. Hanzo is presented as the epitome of manly rectitude. Is he strong? Of course, as evidenced by the trail of bodies he leaves behind after being confronted by small militias. Is he honest? As honest as they come, such as when he refuses to sign the basic oath of allegiance to the police force because he won’t engage in the hypocrisy of his peers. And most important of all: Does he have an enormous penis? I’m surprised you even feel the need to ask.

Not only is that last one not a joke, but it’s the ridiculous-yet-troubling foundation of his entire strategy of policing. Hanzo’s manhood is so sizeable, he has a specially carved platform to hold it, which he needs because he performs a daily regimen to toughen it up that includes beating it with a stick and plunging it into a bag of uncooked rice. He does this because it’s actually the most productive weapon in his arsenal, which he uses to persuade recalcitrant women to give up crucial information on the whereabouts and connections of lawbreaking men. And how does he accomplish this? He kidnaps them and rapes them, impaling them upon his great endowment until – without exception – they are so overcome with pleasure that they will gladly share anything he might care to know. He even has a tried-and-true method of stripping the women down, cinching them up in a fishing net, lowering them onto his linden Johnson, and setting them in motion like a spinning top to reach unthinkable levels of ecstasy while he looks on impassively. His mighty truncheon does the job every time, as big and reliable as Harry Callahan’s .44 Magnum. “Sword of Justice” turns out to be a pun.

Two elements define Hanzo the Razor. On the one hand, casting a historic Japanese warrior as a badass cop delivers a terrific charge. It’s gratifying to see smug, weaselly white-collar crooks get their comeuppance in any era, and Hanzo is a virile, if somewhat tubby, man of the people, like a Japanese Joe Don Baker. When he goes strutting down a dusty road accompanied by a blaring saxophone, tootling organ, and pulsing bassline, it’s genuinely thrilling. At the film’s end, when Hanzo looks out over a map of the entire country and surveys a land filled with crime and corruption that only he can tame, it’s visually spectacular.

But then there’s that other element, Hanzo’s key crime-fighting tool. If any film can be said to be a product of its time, it’s this one; its prehistoric notion that there’s nothing wrong with women that a good rogering won’t solve is almost impressively ugly. The idea that it’s all okay because it helps him get the bad guys, and the women get supreme sexual satisfaction is, to be blunt, gross. It says something about the film that, if you have any reservations about the way The Razor conducts himself, it seeks to cleanse his spirit in your minds in the final minutes by showing the softer side of Hanzo—he kindly assists a dying man by delivering the instantaneous death that the law forbids. Yes, we’re supposed to balance out the rape with assisted suicide. Grand.

There were diminishing returns to those loose-cannon cops. Once you’d seen them do their thing, any future adventures had little to promise but more of the same. That seems to be true for Hanzo, as well. Katsu played Hanzo in two sequels (still a far cry from his two dozen appearances as blind swordsman Zatoichi), with rape-as-investigative-technique a central part of his toolkit throughout. There’s no denying that the well-endowed detective makes a splash in his first outing. But given how he conducts himself, it’s probably best that he turn in his badge.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Hanzo the Razor:  Sword of Justice contains some jaw-dropping stuff early on.  However, the fun sort of dries up in the third act as the plot begins to meander and the weirdness starts to subside.” – Mitch Lovell, The Video Vacuum

(This movie was nominated for review by Cabra. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)         

Hanzo The Razor Sword of Justice

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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: TOUT VA BIEN (1972)

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AKA All’s Well, Just Great, Everything’s Alright

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DIRECTED BY: Jean-Luc Godard,

FEATURING: Yves Montand, ,

PLOT: Susan, an expatriate American journalist, and Jacques, her commercial-director husband, visit a sausage factory on the day that the workers launch a strike and are trapped in the building for two days; after the strike ends, they reflect on the decline of their leftist ideals, and their relationship.

Still from Tout va bien (1972)

COMMENTS: A full year after it was published, a particular excerpt from KC Green’s webcomic “Gunshow” began to gain traction as a meme. The strip, “On Fire,” tracked the fate of a bowler-hatted canine as he maintained his optimism in the face of rising and increasingly destructive flames. Intriguingly, it was the first two panels that became a widely recognized meme, setting our inferno-consumed scene and enshrining the dog’s preternaturally calm assessment, “This is fine.” Lost in the commodification of the image was the build and climax, including Question Hound’s confident ignorance (“I’m okay with the events that are unfolding currently”), his more uncertain self-assurance (“That’s okay, things are going to be okay”), and finally his ultimate fate in the conflagration, melted into hideous deformation like a decorative candle left in the attic. 

Tout Va Bien, which translates literally as “everything is going well,” lives in the space of those forgotten panels. While leftists remember the raucous events of May 68 for the drama of the strikes, protests, and occupations that brought France to a halt, the aftermath four years later find them exhausted, frustrated at their failure to transform society, and uncertain of the line between social and personal gain. So it is that a Communist leader, far from triumphing over the tyranny of capitalism, can be found in a store hawking his book. (“4.75 francs, marked down from 5.50!”) 

Godard and Gorin feel this uncertainty very keenly. Having spent the past several years trying to make Marxist movies in a Marxist fashion, Tout Va Bien was a step back into (relatively) mainstream cinema. As it happens, the movie begins with a pair of offscreen voices debating the traditional story elements needed in a successful film, followed by a series of checks being written to the many participants in the production. The message “you’ve got to spend money to make money” is clearly delivered.

But it’s not as though Jean-Luc Godard is going to suddenly go full Marvel. The subject of leftist dissatisfaction with their role in the political conversation is hardly mainstream subject matter. His technique is forcefully Brechtian, as characters frequently face the fourth wall to expand upon their complaints. And for all the power of having two international movie icons as your leads, the directors give them precious little to do beyond watch the actions around them as they unfold, and to describe their frustrations to each other—and to us. Godard may adopt the conventions of traditional moviemaking, but he puts them in service to a stridently political message, one that asks the question, “Why didn’t we change the world?”

Two of Godard and Gorin’s set pieces are genuine showstoppers. They build the factory set vertically, allowing us a peek into every room, much like the ship cutaway in Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. (Contemporary critics regularly cited Jerry Lewis’ The Ladies Man as a visual inspiration.) This proves valuable in predicting the fate of the strike, as we watch the angry employees break down into factions, fight over their aims, alternate between pointed agitprop and steam-venting vandalism, while each of them insists that their part of the literal sausage-making process is the worst. This is bookended with a stunning tracking shot along the checkout lines at a impressively large supermarket, wherein we watch the lifecycle of a protest as it goes from citizens trying to go about their business to mass defiance to the inevitable violent crackdown by the authorities. These are not surprising messages, but they demonstrate vividly what Godard’s filmmaking acumen can bring to the telling.

Tout Va Bien is an elegy for active leftism. Five decades later, the situations echo strongly with current events, and the young people in the movie chanting “Cops! Bosses! Murderers!” feel like direct ancestors to the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter protests of recent years. But the outcome is also mirrored in our time. As the film concludes, a chipper tune pops in to proclaim, “It’s sunny in France, nothing else matters.” It’s the kind of song that’s probably playing in a room filled with fire, while a melting dog nods along.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Godard’s strange fusion of his pre- and post-radicalized styles turned off critics and audiences alike, but Criterion’s lovingly assembled new DVD suggests that it warrants reappraisal. Though certainly dull and didactic at times, Tout Va Bien is remarkable foremost for its sustained twilight mood of exquisite resignation, of exhausted sadness and bone-deep world-weariness.”–Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club (home video release)

(This movie was nominated for review by Caleb Moss. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Tout Va Bien (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

Tout Va Bien (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]
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CAPSULE: GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT (1972)

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DIRECTED BY: Brian De Palma

FEATURING: Tom Smothers, John Astin, Katharine Ross, Orson Welles

PLOT: At his wit’s end in the fast-paced business world, a dissatisfied middle manager chucks his job to become a traveling tap-dancing magician.

Still from Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972)

COMMENTS: The passing of Tom Smothers brought many recollections of the genuinely transgressive variety show he and his brother Dick assembled to ride the waves of the counterculture and tweak the humorless establishment. It’s part of the legend that the stuffed shirts at CBS seized upon the first opportunity to cancel the show and presumably serve the whim of newly inaugurated paranoiac president Richard Nixon. Smothers would go down in history as a First Amendment martyr, and although the brothers would eventually resume their successful career as comedians and folk-performance parodists (your reviewer still cherishes catching their act as an adolescent and meeting Tom after the show), they never again saw the lofty heights they reached when they were tweaking censors and highlighting America’s distaste for the Vietnam War.

That fall from fame was not for lack of trying. About a year after “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” got yanked off the schedule, Tom decided to take a stab at movie stardom. Get To Know Your Rabbit looks like an ideal vehicle: a satire on the numbing effect of American corporate culture. The leading role seems tailor-made to take advantage of Smothers’ carefully developed stage persona as overwhelmed and bewildered by the world, as well as his offstage passion for justice. The producers also saw an opportunity to provide a Hollywood debut for Brian De Palma, who had made a name for himself with a pair of subversive comedies, Greetings and Hi, Mom! (Our Alfred Eaker would describe De Palma’s work here as “blatantly avant-garde”.) Add in a small part for Katharine Ross (hot off the success of The Graduate) and a key role for one of De Palma’s heroes, Orson Welles (who, as we’ve already seen, was apparently willing to do any film that would let him perform some magic), and this thing can’t possibly miss.

It missed, and badly. The shoot was evidently a misery; Smothers, a controlling figure on his TV show, disapproved of many of De Palma’s choices and eventually refused to turn up for re-takes. Welles also disappointed the young filmmaker, refusing to learn his lines. Eventually, Warner Bros. fired De Palma and recut the film using discarded footage and new scenes, including a much milder ending than the one the ousted director preferred. Finally, they sat on the film for two years, throwing it into theaters for a quickie release to be rid of the thing. (An alternate strategy for the studio was still decades away at the time.) Smothers would head back to the stage, while De Palma would mostly abandon both comedy and the major studios in favor of ian thrillers and suspenseful horror shows. (De Palma avoided Warner Bros. in particular, returning only after two decades to direct The Bonfire of the Vanities, which did Continue reading CAPSULE: GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT (1972) →

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CAPSULE: DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (1972)

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La morte accarezza a mezzanotte

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DIRECTED BY: Luciano Ercoli

FEATURING: (AKA Susan Scott), , Pietro Martellanza (AKA Peter Martell), Carlo Gentili, Claudie Lange, Ivano Staccioli

PLOT: Valentina, a model, takes a hallucinogen for a newspaper story and sees a murder in an apartment directly opposite her building—except it seems it was committed weeks ago.

COMMENTS: I can’t call myself an aficionado or even a fan of giallo. I’ve generally overlooked the genre in the past, probably due to associating it with its early 80s cousin, the “slasher,” which tends to be shoddier and lower class than the more cosmopolitan giallo. But a little education over the years, via DVD and Blu-ray, goes a long way. I can now make the distinction between “giallo” and “giallo-adjacent”; more importantly, I can now appreciate films like Death Walks at Midnight.

It’s a follow-up to the director’s previous giallo, Death Walks in High Heels, in that Midnight uses most of the same cast; but unlike the seriousness of Heels, Midnight takes a lighter tone amidst the intrigue and murders. It’s directly influenced by (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Blood and Black Lace), and in turn would influence later works like ‘s Dressed to Kill.

Navarro’s performance as Valentina makes this one memorable. She’s a very proactive heroine, whether fight-flirting with semi-sleazy journalist/love interest Gio (Andreu) or fending off the prospective killer and potential van rapists. The rest of the cast is also good, from the (somewhat ineffectual, of course) cops to the actors portraying red herrings.

Death Walks at Midnight was released by Arrow Video with both Italian and English soundtracks and audio commentary by Tim Lucas, along with featurettes with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi and an extended television cut. It was re-released as part of Arrow’s “Giallo Essentials” series; the “Blue” box, which includes the two other Ercoli/Navarro giallo collaborations, Death Wears High Heels and The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion. If you’re new to and/or undernourished on giallo, Arrows five “Giallo Essentials” Collections—color-coded Red, Yellow, Black, White and Blue—are excellent entries into the genre.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“As in many gialli, the bizarre trappings – weird weaponry, hallucinations, masked heavy-breathers, burbling lounge music, fabulously garish fashions and decors, bursts of ultra-violence – litter plots which turn out to be indecently fixated on money rather than mania.”–Pam Jahn, Electric Sheep (reviewing the “Death Walks Twice” Blu-ray set of Death Wears High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight)

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates, Shorts

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: LA CABINA [THE TELEPHONE BOX] (1972)

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“La Cabina” is officially available on YouTube from the Spanish Radio and Television Organization (rtve)

DIRECTED BY: Antonio Mercero

FEATURING: José Luis López Vázquez

PLOT: A man becomes trapped inside a telephone booth, with no prospects for escape.

Still from "La Cabina" (1972)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: “La Cabina” is distilled horror, a bizarre situation boiled down to its most basic elements, unfolding briskly but methodically as it approaches a surprising but inevitable climax. You’ll never really understand what’s going on, but you can utterly empathize with the threatened protagonist and the way his plight only grows more alarming. 

COMMENTS: The fifth and final season of “The Twilight Zone” was noteworthy for giving one of its episodes over to a French short film adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s darkly cruel “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” With potent visuals and a classically unsettling twist ending, “Occurrence” was a perfect fit for the show, and also went on to nab that year’s Oscar for Best Short Film. It’s fun to imagine an alternate universe where the show continued for years, because “La Cabina” would have been the absolute highlight of a prospective Twilight Zone Season 13. The Spanish short contains all the elements that make for a great episode of the show, right down to a shocking twist that rivals those found in such classic installments as “Time Enough At Last” or “To Serve Man.”

The setup for “La Cabina” is devilishly simple. In the space of a couple minutes, we meet our hero as he sends his son off to school, and then watch him enter the telephone box that we’ve seen a team of workers construct. From there, the film rests on the shoulders of López as he watches helplessly from his Plexiglas cocoon while onlookers laugh at his predicament, good-naturedly try to help, then surrender and lose interest as their efforts bear no fruit. Known in his home country as a comic actor, López adroitly conveys the poor man’s journey from irritation to fear to despair without a word of dialogue. His distress is especially acute as those same construction workers return—not to extricate him but to hoist the box onto a flatbed truck for a long journey to points unknown. Even as he tries to communicate with a similarly trapped traveler or exchanges pitiful looks with a collection of circus freaks who have now found someone they can pity, López never lets you forget that he’s a decent fellow who has found himself in an especially bad spot, which helps to sell the story’s final transformation into surreal horror.

There are theories about what it all means. It could be an allegory for life under the regime of Francisco Franco, when people could be snatched off the street, never to be seen again. Or it might be a metaphor for the uncertainties of life, as a normal day can easily take an unexpected and even tragic turn. It could also be read as an “Everyman”-type tale expressing the notion that when fate comes, nothing can save us. That a very basic tale about a guy who gets stuck in a telephone booth can carry the weight of such interpretations is a testament to the sturdiness of Mercero’s storytelling. “La Cabina” is truly remarkable, though, for the wonderful outlandishness of its “what-if” premise. 

“La Cabina” left an impression in Spanish pop culture, so much so that López could reprise his role in a commercial for a telecommunications company more than two decades later. It’s not as well-known on this side of the Atlantic, but for aficionados of the horrifying twist, it’s a can’t-miss look at the shocks that can arise out of the most banal moments in life. Sure, you can learn the lesson about keeping an extra pair of glasses for after the nuclear armageddon. But the dangers of making a phone call? “The Twilight Zone” can hardly compete. 

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…La cabina continues to be no less entertaining when simultaneously becoming more and more weird and shocking… If you see the film for the first time, at the end, you may not be excessively surprised but you’ll be most likely wondering how it’s happened you haven’t seen La cabina before.” – John Moscow, Review Maze

OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST:

Atlas Obscura – Surely one of the only short films in history to earn a public monument, the city of Madrid commemorated the 50th anniversary of “La Cabina” by constructing a replica of the title box a stone’s throw away from the original shooting location.

(This movie was nominated for review by marc. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)