“Lord Jim,” (1966)

“Lord Jim,” (1966), directed by Richard Brooks, 3.5 stars

“I've been a so-called coward and a so-called hero and there's not the thickness of a sheet of paper between them” – Tuan (“Lord”) Jim

Young Jim, long before the title “Lord” is bestowed upon him, is an extremely green British sailor with plenty of energy and an ardent sense of adventure.  Unfortunately, on his very first voyage, he and his fellow crew members abandon ship and the ship’s passengers during a fierce and fearsome storm.  When their life boat arrives in port, the ship they left behind is there, having been rescued soon after their hasty and cowardly departure.  Although the captain and other deserters manage to slip away, Jim faces up to his overarching sense of shame by fessing up publicly to his crime, for which he is removed from service by a naval court of inquiry.  From that point forward he must lay low, finding work at odd jobs as best he can.  Much later, as Jim helms a small craft containing a cargo of dynamite, native members of the crew light the boat on fire in an attempt to sabotage the mission by detonating the explosives.  Rather than flee danger yet again by jumping overboard, Jim risks his life and extinguishes the fire, thereby gaining the good graces of Stein (Paul Lukas), a businessman for whom the dynamite was destined.

What happens next is an up-river journey not altogether dissimilar to “Heart of Darkness,” another work by “Lord Jim” author, Joseph Conrad.  Stein sends Jim and the dynamite upstream into the jungle on behalf of villagers who are attempting to rebel against a devious and mercilessly sadist known as The General (Eli Wallach). The General oversees a tin mining operation and has commandeered members of the local community to work in the mine.  Jim is captured and then tortured by The General, but the rebels manage to free him by draping him in a shroud and ushering him out of the fortress.  Before the night is over, Jim has devised a plan which ultimately allows the rebels to capture the fortress and free the imprisoned workers. For his planning and leadership, the natives designate him as Tuan” or “Lord.”

But Jim can never fully emotionally extricate himself from his past.  He lives in fear of being exposed to the locals who look up to him, and he worries that he will once again succumb to his fears during a critical moment when he must display disciplined leadership.  Pride and principles exact a cost, and dearly-won payments are made by others, not only our harried hero.  Peter O’Toole’s incredible intensity works to the film’s advantage.  Both arch-villains, first the General and later Gentleman Brown (James Mason), are quick to identify Jim’s weakness—an exaggerated tendency toward heroics —and each is able to advance his own agenda by relying on Jim to behave in a predictable manner.  There are some well-argued philosophical dialogues scattered throughout, and I wish I could have rewound the film and listened to them all again.

The 70mm print was vivid and pristine, bringing out all of the fine detail in the grand architecture and lush landscape of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple complex.  It’s no surprise that the film was nominated by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for best art direction and cinematography.

“Khartoum” (1966)

“Khartoum” (1966), directed by Basil Dearden, 3.5 stars

“I don't trust any man who consults God before he consults me” – General Charles Gordon

Charlton Heston plays yet another larger-than life, charismatic commander in this 70mm extravaganza that follows the events leading up to the 1885 siege of Khartoum by Muhammad Ahmad (Laurence Olivier).  Ahmad has proclaimed himself Mahdi, redeemer of Islam, and his loyal supporters have already defeated a British-led army much bigger and better equipped than they.  Most everything I know about the history of the British Empire I’ve learned from epic films such as this, so I'm hardly to be trusted as a reliable source to assess its accuracy. Heston plays General Charles George Gordon, the man sent by British Prime Minister Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) to single-handedly evacuate Europeans from the endangered Sudanese city of Khartoum, all the while keeping a low-profile so the British are not associated with yet another embarrassment in the region should he fail.  The popularity of the Gladstone-led government is at an all-time low, and the fact that it appeared reticent to come to Gordon’s aid actually resulted in a rebuke from Queen Victoria, an incident I gleaned from Wikipedia, not the film.

I’m not a big fan of Heston’s screen acting, and his being cast as a British general seems a bit perplexing.  He doesn’t try very hard to affect an authentic accent, nor does he look at all like Charles Gordon, who was apparently only five foot five whereas Heston dominates every shot he’s in (see photo).  Nevertheless, as the film progressed, I admit to mostly forgetting about any of that and simply enjoyed the action, which I would liken to a more exotic, arid, and literate version of Davy Crockett’s terminal adventure, a sort of El Alamo.

Whether politics did or didn’t figure largely in the outcome or whether Gordon and the Mahdi ever really did swap philosophical views doesn’t really matter.  The film is less a history lesson than a window into extraordinary men acting in and reacting to extraordinary situations.  And speaking of acting, Olivier and Richardson are marvelous, and Heston is actually pretty good, too.  The supporting cast is large, and the more prominent players among them also provide solid performances, particularly Johnny Seka as Khalil, Gordon's loyal aide-de-camp.  The dialog is crisp, there’s plenty of action, and the savage North African scenery, especially when seen in 70mm, is truly spectacular.

“Hercules in the Haunted Kingdom” (1961)

“Hercules in the Haunted Kingdom” (1961), directed by Mario Bava, 2.5 stars

"Have you the courage to venture beyond the gates of Hades?" –  Medea (the Sibyl)

After hearing Sam Raimi on the commentary for the DVD for “Ju-on (The Grudge)” praise Mario Bava as a major influence, I decided I ought to check out some of that director’s films on Netflix.  I’ve tried to stay away from the low-budget Italian horror genre because the films look so cheesy and the plots are always pretty mindless.  But as I’ve grown older, I've tried to put away my younger if not completely childish thoughts and now give films I once considered unworthy a second chance.

I thought I’d watch Bava's films in date order, and though “Hercules in the Haunted Kingdom” was the earliest of his films that I could find. it’s probably not the one an avid fan would recommend starting with.  It’s badly acted, poorly written, and very cheaply done.  It follows Hercules (Reg Park) as he descends into Hades with his handsome, oversexed, friend Theseus (George Ardisson) and comic sidekick Telemachus (Franco Giacobini) to seek the stone of forgetfulness which will, according to the Sibyl, restore the mental state of his lover, Daianara (Leonora Ruffo).  She, it seems, is under a spell cast by the evil Lico (Christopher Lee), who Hercules erroneously believes is his ally and winds up fighting during the film’s climax.  But well before then, Hercules discovers that to enter Hades, he must first retrieve the golden apple of the Hesperides, which he does by hurling a huge boulder at it, loosening the apple from the top of an enormous vine from whence it drops a vast distance to the earth unharmed.  He also manages to span a massive, seething mud pool by tying a vine to another boulder, hurling it across the abyss where it lodges on the far side, and then swing across the vine arm across arm as a fierce wind kicks up around him.  Hercules hurls many more massive objects with equal effect before restoring Daianara's memory, getting rid of Lico, and otherwise bringing about a happy ending.

The highlight of the film for me was the sequence just after which skeletal corpses oh so slowly emerge from their tombs and then go after Hercules, suddenly taking wing and launching themselves through the air in his direction.  Their movements are nicely done, and they’re especially effective because the creatures launch themselves somewhat subjectively; that is, they take aim at the camera, presumably representing Hercules’ perspective.  Since I was more interested in Bava for his reputation as a director of horror films rather than mythic hero sagas, and this sequence, I imagine, is a precursor of things to come in his later films.

Bava is not the first director of Italian horror films that I’ve encountered, and I’ve actually run into him before, though I didn’t know it at the time.  About a year ago, I watched several films by Dario Argento, including “Suspiria” (1977), and just this past week, “Inferno” (1980).  He  worked with Argento on both of these films, and the latter was Bava's last effort (though for some reason he received no screen credit for it).  He died that same year.  No doubt, Argento was very much influenced by the elder filmmaker.

One last thing specific to the Netflix offering of “Hercules in the Haunted Kingdom." The print is awful.  It's scratched, the sound is poor, it's clearly a badly made dupe, and there are even some digital artifacts.  Also, the film was shot in widescreen (2.35:1) but the Netflix version looks to have been cropped from television print (1.33:1).  This is noticeable throughout, but most obvious during the closing credit sequence during which the names and titles do not fit on the screen.  This didn't add one whit to my appreciation of the film.  Netflix can (and should) do better than this.

Next up, Bava’s “Black Sabbath” (1963).