Terror In L.A. / 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' (1956)
Jun 29, 2018 23:57:15 GMT
mattgarth, RiP, IMDb, and 1 more like this
Post by petrolino on Jun 29, 2018 23:57:15 GMT
Sunset Terrors
The science-fiction horror 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' is based upon the novel 'The Body Snatchers' (1955) by Jack Finney. Leading psychiatrist Doctor Hill (Whit Bissell) treats a screaming man with a story to tell who's being held in police custody. The man identifies himself as Doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) and recounts a strange series of events leading up to his arrest. Hill comes under pressure to have Bennell committed for treatment but the manic doctor wants his wild claims investigated.
"All right, Jimmy. Open your mouth. Shut your eyes. In the words of the poet... I'll give you something to make you wise."
Dana Wynter & Kevin McCarthy in 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers'
The science-fiction horror 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' relates a terrifying episode in the history of Santa Mira, California. It's been said about this film that its simplicity is its greatest asset and the storytelling is certainly direct. The complexity comes in its structure. San Miro is constructed using different locations in California which are shot in Superscope. Director Don Siegel works in a rare synthetic quality reflective of the Hollywood melodramas of the day but shoots the action in the style of film noir. It's impeccably lit and intuitively angled to enhance the human dynamic. The camera is carefully manned by Ellsworth Fredericks who'd served as a major in the U.S. Army during the 2nd World War, in the capacity of official cinematographer for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A stark orchestral backdrop from composer Carmen Dragon is embellished with sinister piano fills said to have influenced jazzman Dave Grusin’s electrifying piano score for Sydney Pollack’s conspiracy thriller ‘The Firm’ (1993). Through tight, economical filmmaking, Siegel crafts a devastating nightmare born of reality.
The performers all rise to the occasion in 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers'. With each terrifying revelation, cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento become lost to Santa Mira. Though it's a tense drama (often unbearably so) fuelled by scientific thought, there's also jarring moments of action; a climactic pursuit on foot through the California hills is vintage Siegel. Keep on the lookout for a fleeting cameo from action supremo Sam Peckinpah who hailed from Fresno, California and once served as Siegel's dialogue coach.
"It scared me to death when I was nine, and 40 years later it’s still a pretty hair-raising experience to watch Don Siegel’s 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers'. A poorly reviewed $380,000 sci-fi film shot in 23 days in 1956, then wantonly interfered with by its backers, who bookended it with sequences aiming to temper its extreme pessimism, it has since risen, quite rightly, to the first rank of unquestioned science fiction classics, spawning three remakes along the way.
The debate still rages as to whether the movie is an indictment of a creeping proto-communist mentality in America, a portrait of Eisenhower-era complacency or a look at the infectious hysteria attendant upon McCarthyism. I’d opt for the latter (Siegel confirmed those were his instincts but always maintained that he wasn’t a message man) since the blacklist was then still a recent, very personal and horribly invasive experience for the whole industry, but the metaphor is potent however you read it.
Context being everything, I’d place Invasion in several different career chronologies and sequences of movies. Firstly, it takes pride of place in a chain of 1950s sci-fi classics of the questioning, doubting, paranoid variety, including Christian Nyby’s 'The Thing From Another World', 'Them!', 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' and 'I Married A Monster From Outer Space'. Its noirish visuals – no effects, no process shots – make it a twin to Robert Aldrich’s 'Kiss Me Deadly' (which, with an atom bomb as its MacGuffin, is already halfway to sci-fi) and its apocalyptic, end-of-the-world fatalism anticipates both 'The Birds' and 'Night Of The Living Dead'.
Its screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring also co-wrote the seminal noir film 'Out Of The Past' (from his own novel), as well as 'The Big Steal', the caper that kickstarted Don Siegel’s career. Mainwaring was remembered by director Joseph Losey as an alcoholic blacklistee, but by his widow as an alcoholic “front” for other blacklisted screenwriters. Whichever it was, his screenplay for 1954 tabloid smash 'The Phenix City Stor'y might be the most brutal indictment of American racism and political corruption ever made; it probably looked “Un-American” to its marrow."
The debate still rages as to whether the movie is an indictment of a creeping proto-communist mentality in America, a portrait of Eisenhower-era complacency or a look at the infectious hysteria attendant upon McCarthyism. I’d opt for the latter (Siegel confirmed those were his instincts but always maintained that he wasn’t a message man) since the blacklist was then still a recent, very personal and horribly invasive experience for the whole industry, but the metaphor is potent however you read it.
Context being everything, I’d place Invasion in several different career chronologies and sequences of movies. Firstly, it takes pride of place in a chain of 1950s sci-fi classics of the questioning, doubting, paranoid variety, including Christian Nyby’s 'The Thing From Another World', 'Them!', 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' and 'I Married A Monster From Outer Space'. Its noirish visuals – no effects, no process shots – make it a twin to Robert Aldrich’s 'Kiss Me Deadly' (which, with an atom bomb as its MacGuffin, is already halfway to sci-fi) and its apocalyptic, end-of-the-world fatalism anticipates both 'The Birds' and 'Night Of The Living Dead'.
Its screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring also co-wrote the seminal noir film 'Out Of The Past' (from his own novel), as well as 'The Big Steal', the caper that kickstarted Don Siegel’s career. Mainwaring was remembered by director Joseph Losey as an alcoholic blacklistee, but by his widow as an alcoholic “front” for other blacklisted screenwriters. Whichever it was, his screenplay for 1954 tabloid smash 'The Phenix City Stor'y might be the most brutal indictment of American racism and political corruption ever made; it probably looked “Un-American” to its marrow."
- John Patterson, The Guardian
Carolyn Jones & Mickey Rooney - stars of Don Siegel's 'Baby Face Nelson' (1957)
When Doctor Bennell analyses the 1st body he comes across, seen via a series of flashbacks, framed artworks project both the duality of film noir - 'Mirroir Noir', 'Femme Fatale' - and gothic horror - 'Chat Blanc'. Conspiracy lies at the heart of 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' which feeds feverishly off paranoid delusions. It presages the dark intentions of Siegel's twisted period gothic 'The Beguiled' (1971) and its influence can be seen in decisive California horrors like Jack Sholder's 'The Hidden' (1987), David DeCoteau's 'Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama' (1988) and John Carpenter's 'They Live' (1988). Philip Kaufman remade the film as 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' (1978), Abel Ferrara followed with the environmental take 'Body Snatchers' (1993) and Oliver Hirschbiegel reimagined it as 'The Invasion' (2007). Horror films like 'Zombie High' (1987), 'Disturbing Behavior' (1998), 'The Faculty' (1998) and 'Invasion Of The Pod People' (2007) also serve to preserve the film's lineage. A new version is currently in the works at Warner Brothers, with a script by David Leslie Johnson.
"Great directors don't always have great careers. The British film-maker Michael Reeves made only three films, between 1966 and 1968: 'The She-Beast', 'The Sorcerers', and 'Witchfinder General', his masterpiece. A year after making 'Witchfinder General', he died aged just 24, but left the world with three imaginative, low-budget movies, which - in their own modestly ambitious way - are superb examples of a very British type of cinema.
Reeves's love of film started young. At the age of eight, he announced to his mother that he wanted to be a film director; three years later, he made his first film, 'Carrion', which starred his friend Ian Ogilvy as a psychotic who attacks a girl in a wheelchair. Another regular Reeves collaborator, the writer Tom Baker, worked on the film, too. "He didn't just want to make films, he wanted to make Hollywood movies," Baker recalls now. "So we had to learn how to track. For this we used his mother's tea trolley with an 8mm Bolex on top."
Reeves and his mother were the poor relations of a rich family, and inherited money when Reeves was 15. He used the opportunity to take himself off to Hollywood at 17, and meet his hero, the action director Don Siegel. Somehow Reeves discovered where Siegel lived, and turned up on his doorstep, where the bewildered director appeared in a string vest and underpants. "I've come all the way from England to meet you because you are the greatest director that ever lived," Reeves told him, and promptly found work in town."
Reeves's love of film started young. At the age of eight, he announced to his mother that he wanted to be a film director; three years later, he made his first film, 'Carrion', which starred his friend Ian Ogilvy as a psychotic who attacks a girl in a wheelchair. Another regular Reeves collaborator, the writer Tom Baker, worked on the film, too. "He didn't just want to make films, he wanted to make Hollywood movies," Baker recalls now. "So we had to learn how to track. For this we used his mother's tea trolley with an 8mm Bolex on top."
Reeves and his mother were the poor relations of a rich family, and inherited money when Reeves was 15. He used the opportunity to take himself off to Hollywood at 17, and meet his hero, the action director Don Siegel. Somehow Reeves discovered where Siegel lived, and turned up on his doorstep, where the bewildered director appeared in a string vest and underpants. "I've come all the way from England to meet you because you are the greatest director that ever lived," Reeves told him, and promptly found work in town."
- Will Hodgkinson, The Guardian
Don Siegel directing 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers'
'High Notes' - La Sera
'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Leonard Maltin described the film as "influential, and still very scary".
Haunted L.A.
"Although relegated to playing a mute, Lon Chaney Jr. in his movie 'Indestructible Man' (1956) still demonstrates that he has the acting chops to pull off a role like Lenny in 'Of Mice and Men' (1939). Sadly, Jack Pollexfen’s direction of the film tends to display Butcher’s anger by focusing on his ever-darting eyes, which after a while grows tiresome. The mixture of noir with horror is interesting, although the detective’s voiceover is a bit too cheesy. Some of the locations, including Angels Flight (a funicular railway in downtown Los Angeles), are a feast for the eyes, even though the cinematography is lackluster. Also intrusive is the romance between Chasen and the girl, which really feels superficial and is perhaps designed to deliver a happy ending with a marriage proposal.
Although not one of Lon Chaney Jr.’s best performances, the film 'Indestructible Man' nevertheless is enjoyable entertainment, particularly those who enjoy Frankenstein-like storylines with a gangster subplot, done with poor noir trappings. Chaney is always a pleasure to watch, and admittedly Marian Carr is very easy on the eyes. As for noir, there is not one bit of dialogue that can compare to 1953’s The Big Heat, where a bartender played by Sidney Clute describes the bar girls: “They’re floaters. Not much more than a suitcase full of nothing between them and the gutters.”
- Octavio Ramos, 'Indestructible Man'
"Roger Corman's “The Little Shop of Horrors” (1960) is a movie I'd been avoiding since seventh grade. That's around the time I first rented a copy of the 1986 musical, starring Rick Moranis and Vincent Gardenia, and fell profoundly in love. I still know that movie backward and forward. (The dentist scene shot from inside the patient's mouth -- oh my God, that's still the apex of cinematic hilarity to me.)
My feeling about Corman's original has always been something like: well, I'm sure it's historically noteworthy, but clearly the material has since been perfected. In recent years, though, I've become two things: kind of a Roger Corman fan (“The Raven” cracked me up eight ways from Sunday); and a carnivorous-plant gardener. And both those things have made me feel guilty for not looking into this movie.
So the situation was remedied recently and oh my, I owe Corman a massive apology. His “Little Shop” could not be more fun. All the elements in the musical version are there already, just more concise and not set to song. And there are pleasingly surreal elements that could never have been replicated."
- Anne Elisabeth Dillon of the Silent Flower Observers of Southern California, The Daily Mirror
- Octavio Ramos, 'Indestructible Man'
"Roger Corman's “The Little Shop of Horrors” (1960) is a movie I'd been avoiding since seventh grade. That's around the time I first rented a copy of the 1986 musical, starring Rick Moranis and Vincent Gardenia, and fell profoundly in love. I still know that movie backward and forward. (The dentist scene shot from inside the patient's mouth -- oh my God, that's still the apex of cinematic hilarity to me.)
My feeling about Corman's original has always been something like: well, I'm sure it's historically noteworthy, but clearly the material has since been perfected. In recent years, though, I've become two things: kind of a Roger Corman fan (“The Raven” cracked me up eight ways from Sunday); and a carnivorous-plant gardener. And both those things have made me feel guilty for not looking into this movie.
So the situation was remedied recently and oh my, I owe Corman a massive apology. His “Little Shop” could not be more fun. All the elements in the musical version are there already, just more concise and not set to song. And there are pleasingly surreal elements that could never have been replicated."
- Anne Elisabeth Dillon of the Silent Flower Observers of Southern California, The Daily Mirror
'A Bucket Of Blood' (1959)
'House On Haunted Hill' (1959)
'Loveless' - Lo Moon
"One of the first American films to tackle the problem of gun violence head-on – made when Michael Moore was still in short trousers – 'Targets' is also way ahead of its time in terms of narrative: it soon becomes clear that the (untitled) script Sammy wants Orlok to appear in is 'Targets', the film we’re watching unfold. Foreshadowing the likes of Wes Craven’s 'New Nightmare' and 'Being John Malkovich', Targets could be cited as one of the first serious post-modern films in the American cinema – just as the Karloff-Bogdanovich collaboration represents a passing of the torch from the ‘old’ Hollywood to the ‘new.’
And it’s entirely appropriate that Peter Bogdanovich (although only a so-so actor here) should be the one on the receiving end of the transaction: out of all the directors of his era, he was the one most knowledgeable and admiring of, and in direct touch with, his ‘golden-age’ predecessors. 'Targets' pays overt tribute to (among others) Howard Hawks, Samuel Fuller and Alfred Hitchcock, but does so with a verve and economy that transcend mere pastiche. “All the great movies have been made,” Sammy sighs – a statement which 'Targets' goes on to emphatically disprove. By concentrating his camera on the more humdrum corners of Hollywood, meanwhile, Bogdanovich’s film stands alongside the likes of 'Point Blank', 'Memento' and 'Punch-Drunk Love' as incidental time-capsules charting the fascinating geography of backwater Los Angeles."
- Neil Young, CineSide
"While 'Halloween' (1978) terrified audiences by bringing back the kind of violence and terror of Alfred Hitchcock’s 'Psycho' (1960), 'The Fog' (1980) was a different kind of thriller. It’s a film that relies more on atmosphere than jump scares. 'The Fog' builds suspense as secrets are revealed about a century-old curse that brings the undead back to Antonio Bay, and Point Reyes’ seaside location serves the story perfectly.
“The idea we had was to tell a classic ghost story,” John Carpenter says in The Fog’s DVD director commentary. His co-writer and producer Debra Hill adds that the point of inspiration came when the former couple took a trip to England’s Stonehenge monuments and noticed a fog creeping across the lowlands. “[Carpenter] said to me, ‘What if there is something in that fog? Wouldn’t that be scary?’ ”
“The story came from an actual event in California history,” Carpenter says. “It happened off the coast of Santa Barbara. A ship was sunk that was carrying lots of gold and it was pirated and so forth. We just added the ghostly aspect.” With the idea in mind, the production team needed to find a location.
“We took a trip up the coastline, up Route One, and we stopped at all these different lighthouses along the way,” Hill says on the DVD. “And when we stopped at this particular lighthouse [in Point Reyes], we noticed that it was perched out on this cliff. It was very scary, very beautiful, and very moody. And we knew it was the perfect place to film this movie. And, it turns out, it’s the second foggiest place in America, the first being Nantucket island.”
“This is one of the most beautiful areas in the entire world — Point Reyes, California, and Inverness,” says Carpenter. “I fell in love with the place, so much so that I bought a house.” One reason to revisit The Fog — or to watch it for the first time — is the spectacular cinematography covering western Marin and Sonoma counties."
- Peter Crooks, Marin Magazine
'Assault On Precinct 13' (1976)
'3 Women' (1977)
"Lionsgate released 'Chopping Mall' (1986) twice on DVD: once in 2004 and another time in 2012 as a DVD set along with seven other horror movies. The commentary reveals an ironically unfriendly relationship between the filmmakers and the security chief of the Sherman Oaks Galleria Mall during filming. Inspired by the 1954 film 'Gog', Jim Wynorski wrote the script after a suggestion from Julie Corman to write a movie about a killer in a mall. Although it may seem uninspired, having a movie take place in a mall certainly gives a filmmaker a lot of options in terms of survivor offense."
- Tracy Allen, Cryptic Rock
"'The Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge' (1989) : You’ve heard of 'Phantom of the Opera'. You know all the 'Phantom of the Paradise' (1974) songs by heart. But what about the most dreaded Phantom of them all ('The Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge, 1989) ... the lovesick teen who haunts the mall, lurking in the air ducts, protecting his former girlfriend, hiding his hideously scarred face, and utilizing some marvelously creative murder tactics — giant fans, escalators, poisonous snakes — to take down anyone who gets in his way? (The “revenge” part of the title comes because poor Eric’s house was deliberately burned down to make way for the mall, which is actually decent motivation if you think about it.) This movie is pretty silly, though it is blessedly non-musical, and it makes use of one of cinema’s most-filmed shopping centers of the 1980s, if not all time: the Sherman Oaks Galleria, also seen in 'Valley Girl' (1983) and 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' (1982)."
- Cheryl Eddy, '5 Shopping-Mall Horror Tales That Are Almost As Terrifying As Black Friday'
'Poltergeist' (1982)
'Night Of The Comet' (1984)
'California Nights' - Best Coast
"As the saying goes... "It's all about location, location, location," and this house is going to be the party location to attend on Halloween weekend! The movie, 'Scream' (1996), was filmed in Santa Rosa, California, and the last act of the movie was filmed in a single location... a large house in Tomales, a little town adjacent to Santa Rosa. This house was known as "Stu's house" in the script, and the screenplay referred to the lengthy showdown ending as Scene 118."
- Anthony Masi, 'Scream Comes Home'
“Dick Laurent is dead.” These are the first words Bill Pullman’s character hears in 'Lost Highway' (1997), and his nervous response hints to some subconscious understanding of the seemingly random message. The voice speaking the words is coming through his home’s intercom system, and a quick look out the window shows no signs of anyone outside. A disembodied voice, a protagonist who seems to haunt their home rather than live in it, a foreboding sense of unease – this film has David Lynch’s strange fingerprints all over it from the start.
For many, the director’s 1997 psychological thriller serves as a prelude to his 2001 masterpiece 'Mulholland Drive', but it is a mysterious, enthralling neo-noir in its own right. Briefly put, 'Lost Highway' tells the odd tale of Fred Madison (Pullman), a saxophonist in the sleazy night-time world of Lynch’s eerie, twisted California, who mysteriously finds himself on death row for the murder of his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) despite having no knowledge of her death. While on death row, he inexplicably morphs into Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty) and begins leading a completely different life.
'Mulholland Drive' perplexed and entertained in equal measure before offering some measure of catharsis by its conclusion, but 'Lost Highway' steers us firmly down the road away from rational thought. Madison’s visions of strange figures driving down deserted roads, and of a pale man who seemingly knows everything about him, typify the Lynchian desire to disrupt small-town America and replace it with a mirage."
- William Carroll, Little White Lies
'The Terminator' (1984)
'Prince Of Darkness' (1987)
"The Knickerbocker, now a senior living facility, might be one of the most haunted places in Los Angeles. It was originally built as an apartment building in 1925, then became a fancy hotel--Rudolph Valentino is now said to haunt the bar; Marilyn Monroe supposedly hangs out in the ladies' room; and there are lots of assorted other sightings. (And there's plenty of other fodder--director DW Griffith died in the lobby and actress Frances Farmer was arrested in the hotel on her way to insanity.) But it's perhaps most notable for its non-haunting: after Harry Houdini's death on Halloween 1926, his widow Bess attempted to contact him every year for ten years with a seance on the roof of the Knickerbocker. No dice."
- Adrian Glick Kudler, '20 Haunted Los Angeles Landmarks And Their Ghost Stories'
"Bela Lugosi's Apartment, 5620 Harold Way, Los Angeles, CA 90027 : Universal Studio’s legendary Dracula died in 1956 in this modest apartment near Western Avenue. Lugosi would walk daily to his favorite cigar shop at 6423 Hollywood Blvd. When the hearse with Lugosi’s body drove from the funeral home (where the W Hotel is now), the driver inexplicably lost control of the vehicle and couldn’t regain it until he passed the cigar shop, convincing many that it was Lugosi’s final farewell to Hollywood."
- The Death Hag at Dearly Departed Tours, 'The 13 Scariest Places In Los Angeles'
'The People Under The Stairs' (1991)
'Freeway' (1996)
'Drug Store's Symbol Of Happiness' - Peach Kelli Pop
"Los Angeles is full of haunted places, but you can't access most of its murder mansions, deathbeds, hotels-turned-condos, or abandoned hospitals without trespassing, risking fines, or worse yet -- imprisonment. But if you'd like to make contact with the other side, there are plenty of haunted locations throughout the L.A. area that you can access legally (some with only minor finagling).
Maybe you've been mingling with the ghosts at some of these places this whole time, but never thought twice about that flicker of light in your peripheral view, or the shadow that seemed to disappear. For a little taste of paranormal activity, visit one of these historic L.A. landmarks and be reminded that you are not alone -- even when you're by yourself ..."
- Sandi Hemmerlein, 'The Most Haunted Places In Los Angeles'
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