Tag Archives: Hugh Griffith

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: OH DAD, POOR DAD, MAMMA’S HUNG YOU IN THE CLOSET AND I’M FEELIN’ SO SAD (1967)

2 Comments

366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.

Beware

DIRECTED BY: Richard Quine, Alexander Mackendrick

FEATURING: Rosalind Russell, , Barbara Harris, ,

PLOT: 25-year-old manchild Jonathan travels to various points exotic under his mother’s watchful eye; in Montego Bay, his mother hopes to nab a new husband, as the first one is stuffed and hung in the closet.

Still from oh dad poor dad mama's hung you in the closet and I'm feeling so sad (1967)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: It is with reluctance that I recommend this for apocryphization, but I cannot disregard the mathematical theorem: Overblown ’60s romp misfire + Rosalind Russell cranked up to 11 + Stage adaptation + Built-in MST3K post-production tacked on by nervous executives = Weird.

COMMENTS: The good contributors at IMDb inform us that director Richard Quine, “…killed himself because he was not able to make the kind of light comedy films he wanted to make.” I open with this bit of whimsical trivia in keeping with the ODPDMHYitCaIFSS experience: macabre, and almost funny. Sort of. Tragic—but kind of dumb? Well-intentioned? Perplexing?

“Perplexing” might be the most complimentary descriptor I can honestly apply to Quine’s film. “Featuring Rosalind Russell” is another honest thing to say, but while her presence is welcome (as a general rule), her performance as Madam Rosepettle suggests that she knows what she’s doing, but is doing it a bit too well. The outfits, wigs, and Russellness are not for the faint of heart. Robert Morse, as the child of this mother, feels like an underbaked under a layer of pale pastiness. Their romp around a Jamaican grand hotel (mostly in it, I suppose) is scored such that the intent must have been for us to be enjoying a bit of good fun.

“Enjoy” isn’t the word, and neither is the word “fun.” Where ODPDMHYitCaIFSS crashes over the cliff and into the waters of Good God, Why? has to do with the addition of Jonathan Winters. The film, as released, opens with this talented comedian talking to us from Heaven. He’s in a rush, as one of his wings is being repaired by a laconic fellow angel. Throughout the subsequent what-have-you, his face appears in one of the corners, accompanied by some quip concerning the action. These asides are sometimes amusing, sometimes miss the mark, and are sometimes really creepy: I am not a father, but the fellow’s enthusiasm encouraging his somewhat simple son during sexual shenanigans struck me as squicky.

There’s the possibility that Quine’s oddity might have garnered a recommendation if the filmmakers been had able to stick to their guns and play it “straight”—still romp, still badly done, still silly, but minus the bet-hedging from Winters’ character. At points the story could have ballooned into being genuinely disturbing, but the wisecracks deflate the unintentional rise into Beau Is Afraid levels of anxiety. It’s almost enough to drive a reviewer to despair.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“If done right this film could have, I suppose, gained some sort of cult following. Yet it is so poorly realized and so thoroughly botched that it is impossible to know where one could begin to improve it… When you get past the weird fringes all you have left is a stale, plodding coming-of- age tale.” — Richard Winters, Scopophilia Movie Blog (VHS)

Capsules

CAPSULE: DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN (1972)

Leave a comment

DIRECTED BY: Robert Fuest

FEATURING: Vincent Price, Robert Quarry, Peter Jeffrey, , Valli Kemp, Hugh Griffith

PLOT: Dr. Phibes rises from suspended animation and travels to Egypt seeking waters of immortality to resurrect his beloved wife; but another man seeks the waters as well, and Scotland Yard is once again on Phibes’ trail.

Still from Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The original was just weird enough to make it a candidate for the List, but this nearly redundant sequel adds nothing new that would justify considering giving it its own separate spot.

COMMENTS: If you liked the original The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Rises Again tries hard to give you more of the same—campy black comedy mixed with bizarre characters, sets and (now gorier) murders—except this time there’s no logic or sense in the script whatsoever.  All the beloved characters are back, including all the ones that died in the first movie.  Mysterious silent assistant Vulnavia (played by a new actress, Australian beauty queen Valli Kemp) returns from the original, as do the clockwork musicians (Phibes packs them up in a steamer and ships them to Egypt with him). The sets and art design echo the original, with an Egyptian slant replacing the Art Deco look; there are some fun new sights like Price dressed as a sheik and an octagonal mirrored hallway. The half-serious campy tone from the first effort carries over, as does the black humor (watch as Phibes drinks champagne and eats fish through a hole in the back of his neck at a picnic with Vulnavia). A very few things have changed.  Whereas Phibes was nearly silent in the first film, speaking rarely and painfully through audio cables that ran from his neck to a gramophone horn, once he Rises Again you can’t shut him up.  For this outing he brought along an extra-long audio cable so he can wander about the sets, cursing all who would dare oppose them and plotting their fiendish demise without being limited to a five-foot radius around the phonograph.  (He often speaks without a hookup at all; maybe we’re just privy to his inner monologues).  And three years in suspended animation has sharpened his supervillain abilities: whereas in the first film, the Abominable doctor spent years plotting elaborate fetishistic schemes to kill his enemies based around Biblical plagues, now whenever he needs to he can simply whip up a spiked scorpion chair filled with creepy crawlies out of spit, bailing wire and whatever odds and ends he has lying around his pyramid.  In the sequel, Phibes is pitted against another villain (a megalomaniac Robert Quarry, who makes it clear he doesn’t appreciate the inconvenience when the doctor keeps killing off his henchmen) rather than against the forces of law and order: Inspector Trout and his Scotland Yard superintendent are relegated to comic relief (they hesitate searching Phibes’ pyramid because they don’t have a warrant). So this time out we’re explicitly encouraged to root for Vincent Price (not that we wouldn’t anyway, but the lack of noble opponent makes it easier to get on his side).  As mentioned before, the deaths are more gruesome in this sequel; the scene where Phibes’ pet falcon eats an interloper, pulling wads of flesh off his bloody corpse and swallowing them, pushes the limits of the movie’s PG rating.  Lack of a sensible script aside, Fuest does a good job of giving Phibes fans more of what they loved about Abominable, but the one thing he can’t reproduce is the original’s originality.

Due to bungled rights issues, TV broadcasts and the original home video releases of Dr. Phibes Rises Again did not include Price’s rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” replacing the sound in that key scene with generic instrumental film cues. MGM’s latest DVD releases (sold in a single disc edition, as a double feature with Abominable, and as part of a seven-movie Vincent Price box set) restore the soundtrack of the original.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Vincent Price usually came across as barking mad at the best of times, but add a daft wig, the inability to talk and some truly weird costumes, and you are taken into Salvador Dali territory by this performance…  If you saw it a while ago and tend to think of it as a gaudy example of psychedelic kitsch, it’s time for a major re-evaluation.”–Chris Wood, BritishHorrorFilms.com (DVD)