Mr. Sardonicus

Mr. Sardonicus (1961)

Dir. William Castle

Written by Ray Russell

Starring Ronald Lewis, Guy Rolfe, Audrey Dalton, Oskcar Homolka

When London doctor Robert Cargrave (Ronald Lewis, A TASTE OF FEAR) visits the reclusive Baron Sardonicus (Guy Rolfe, DOLLS) at the request of the his old flame --and the current Mrs. Baron Sardonicus-- (Audrey Dalton, THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD), he finds a situation which could safely be called unexpected. Seems that the cruel Baron --who lives in an menacing gothic castle and casually tortures his servants-- is the victim of a bizarre medical condition: years ago, while digging up his father’s corpse to retrieve a winning lottery ticket (long story), he became so overcome by terror that his face froze in a horrific contorted mask. He demands Cargrave cure his condition, or else risk brutal punishment for Mrs. Sardonicus! That’s right, Fix my face or I’ll kill my own wife! This guy’s got some bold new villainous ideas.

What we have here, then, is a curious mix of classic horror and asynchronous 1960’s modernity. In the classic horror corner, we got a looming gothic castle, a dry-ice-drenched grave-robbing flashback, and a medieval torture room headed by a guy named “Krull” (Oskar Homolka, Oscar-nominated for 1948’s I REMEMBER MAMA and clearly fallen on hard times since then). But we also have some startling modern detritus; winning lottery tickets (the proceeds from which bought the “Baron” his castle and title, a weirdly comic detail that the movie doesn’t seem to find odd), medical specialization, and corny pop psychology. And of course, it’s Wiliam Castle (THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL), so there’s gonna be a gimmick, oh my yes.

This movie is set in 1961, by the way.

It doesn’t feel haphazard or fragmented, though, it just feels transitional: a particular tendril in the evolutionary tree of modern horror which was still trying to recontextualize its classic tropes into a world increasingly alien to them. There is no particular reason for there to be a gothic castle or a Baron of any kind in here, except that in 1961 horror movies had either gothic castles or rubbery monsters, and this one doesn’t have any rubber monsters. It was a solidly old-fashioned movie even at the time (PSYCHO and PEEPING TOM had both come out the previous year, effectively inaugurating the modern period of horror cinema) but gothic horror was by no means dead yet, and, following on the heels of the “nuclear monster” films of the 1950s and The Twilight Zone (which had begun two years prior in 1959), allegorical horror was still very much in vogue. And MR. SARDONICUS has a little bit of all those elements in there. There’s a hint of the early psychoanalytic fetishization which would play into PYSCHO, some hoary gothic flourishes, and a lot of stagey morality play.

“Stagey morality play” sounds like death on celluloid, but the movie has enough fun to stay light on its feet. It’s a solid, old-fashioned fable with a small but potent surfeit of great details, mostly in “Sardonicus’s” fucking terrifying, incredibly painful-looking face and only slightly less terrifying mask. (The mask was necessary because, as you can plainly see from just looking at it, the prosthetic makeup actor Guy Rolfe had to wear was so painful he could not physically stand to wear it for more than an hour at a time.) It’s very simple but surprisingly effective, with solid performances (at least by B-move standards) and an elegantly unencumbered story structure which gradually doles out both conflict and explanation. It also looks quite nice (in its cheap, soundstagey sort of way) courtesy of two-time Academy Award winner Burnett Guffey (FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, BONNIE AND CLYDE). And of course, it sports the requisite darkly ironic ending which is absolutely crucial for this sort of affair.

But ah, that’s where Castle’s trademark gimmick comes into play, and of course we simply must talk about that. His gimmicks ranged from “free toy!” giveaways (the glow-in-the-dark “magic” coins from ZOTZ!) to chintzy carnie hokum (the pop-up skeleton in HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) to the ambitiously elaborate and inventive (the vibrating audience seats in THE TINGLER, which must have been absolute hell to pull off). MR. SARDONICUS, though, has one of his more interesting parlor tricks, and it’s probably the thing which is most remembered about the film, other than Sardonicus’s disturbing visage. Castle himself appears at the beginning of the film and near the end in something of a Rod Serling capacity, acting as host and narrator. His second appearance, though, is unique in cinema history, because he pauses the action right after the climax of the film, and directly asks the audience to decide Sardonicus’s fate. Should he be punished for his cruelty, or has he suffered enough to deserve mercy? Audiences were given a glow-in-the-dark (of course) card with a hand on it, with which they could show “thumbs up” or thumbs down.”

Gee, I wonder what a horror audience is going to do with that? The “verdict” is such a foregone conclusion that apparently only one ending was ever filmed, and I’ll give you two guesses which one. Castle went to his grave swearing there was an alternate ending which was, in his words “rarely, if ever, used,” but given that not one scrap of physical evidence has ever come to light to support this claim, the consensus seems to be that he’s full of it. (And would you want him to be anything else?)

Supposedly, this is the actual voting card.

Being a total lie doesn’t make it less of a fun gimmick, but the movie is actually good enough that it doesn’t need it. Arguably, Castle ought to have trusted the premise and the excellent makeup design to get the audience where he wanted them. But I guess he wouldn’t be William Castle if he had. It’s actually a pretty dark ironic punishment (which implies, SPOILER, a slow and horrible death for Sardonicus that could be easily avoided if only he hadn’t been such a prick) but Castle’s intrusion kinda breaks up the film’s momentum and the “punishment” has only about 3 minutes of screen time to pick up steam again before the film ends. Despite the exotic strangeness of the “punishment poll” (even more pointless at home than it was in the theater), it can’t really recover its impetus after the interruption, and lurches unsteadily across the finish line. Part of the problem is that the “poll” occurs only after the real conflict in the film has already been decisively resolved, and only requires the audience to choose their preferred coda. The good guys have already won, the only question is what happens to the now-defeated villain. That’s interesting, but maybe not very satisfying; if you’re going to involve people in the plot, it would probably work better to have them make more impactful choices. It’s like if AMERICAN GRAFFITI ended and you got a choice of whether or not you wanted Terry “the Toad” to die in Vietnam in a text-only epilogue (for the record: I would vote against it). It might work if it were a more over-the-top, active revenge, but instead it’s intrinsically passive, about not saying something. It’s the ending of the original short story by Ray Russell (from which he adapted the screenplay) but although I’ve never read the story I suspect there’s no “choose your own adventure” option, and that probably works better. Amusing as Castle is, the film would be stronger without the gimmick, or at least with the ending changed to something corny enough to work with the added lowbrow fun of a “punishment poll.”

Even so, it’s not disruptive enough to kill the movie’s charm, and it’s not like the movie is otherwise some unimpeachable classic which got tarnished at the last minute by some hustling showman. It’s silly and stagey and dated, like most of Castle’s pictures, and even if the gimmick is a bit narratively disruptive, it adds a little exotic oddness to something which otherwise might feel a little too much like an unnecessarily extended Twilight Zone episode. Still, there’s something that fundamentally works about the story which needs no flashy trappings. If it’s stagey and silly, it is so in a way which feels appropriately mythic, and it has enough macabre instincts to maintain its gleefully morbid tone throughout an unhurried 89 minutes. I always got the sense that Castle, like his huckster successors monsieurs Golan and Globus, liked being a filmmaker more than he actually liked making films, but this one is a testament to his ability to make a film which is borderline worthy of his genius as a marketing impresario.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2016 CHECKLIST!

Good Kill Hunting

TAGLINE	One of the most accurate taglines I've ever had the honor to read.
TITLE ACCURACY	Actually it’s Baron Sardonicus. He didn’t spend all that lotto money on a fancy title to be called Mister.
LITERARY ADAPTATION?	Yes, from writer Russell’s short story of the same name.
SEQUEL?	None
REMAKE?	None
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN	USA
HORROR SUB-GENRE	Uhhh… Ironic morality play? I guess Body Horror, to a certain extent? I dunno, there’s nothing else really like it.
SLUMMING A-LISTER?	Oskar Homolka had been nominated for Best Supporting actor in 1948, and is actually first billed here despite the fact that he’s playing a pretty small role as Sardonicus’s main henchman. But A-list? You don’t end up in a William Castle film if you’re A-list.
BELOVED HORROR ICON?	William Castle. Guy Rolfe?
NUDITY?	No
SEXUAL ASSAULT?	None
WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK!	No, although some dogs die
GHOST/ ZOMBIE / HAUNTED BUILDING?	No
POSSESSION?	None
CREEPY DOLLS?	Creepy mask, but no dolls
EVIL CULT?	no
MADNESS?	Sardonicus’ condition, we hear, is the result of shock, not medical trauma. So in that sense, sure, but by the time we meet him he seems pretty with it.
TRANSMOGRIFICATION?	Normal to Sardonicus
VOYEURISM?	None apparent
MORAL OF THE STORY	Never dig up your father’s corpse to retrieve a winning lottery ticket. Or, I guess, don’t be such a dick afterwards if you absolutely must.

The Fly (1958)

The Fly (1958)

Dir. Kurt Neumann

Written by James Clavell based on the short story by George Langelaan

Starring Al Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price

THE FLY is one of those 1950s mad science / giant insect (spoiler?) films which we think about primarily in conjunction with Mystery Science Theater 3000. Which is to say, we think of them as comically antiquated, silly camp, if we even think about them at all. We have some hazy vision of stilted dialogue and clumsy rubber monster suits and cartoonishly square honkie scientists, and that’s about it. But THE FLY isn’t just a 1950s mad science / giant insect film. It’s also the 1950s mad science / giant insect film; the one which has emerged from the pack over the years to not simply be remembered, but to embody the very concept of this type of film. Writer Chuck Klosterman gained some attention recently for his theory which states, “As the timeline moves forward, tangential artists in any field fade from the collective radar, until only one person [or, in this case, work of art] remains; the significance of that individual is then exaggerated, until the genre and the person become interchangeable.” He used this to imagine a future where the musical genre “rock and roll” has faded completely from popular culture and is only remembered as a historical movement through the lens of one individual performer who consequently must represent the totality of the artform (he debated between Elvis, The Beatles and Bob Dylan, before ultimately settling on the correct choice, Chuck Berry). If John Philip Sousa is the embodiment of marching band music, Beethoven is the embodiment of Classical Music, and Berry will someday embody rock and roll, THE FLY is the embodiment of that particular breed of horror which in itself defines, to some extent, the genre cinema of the 1950s. Only perhaps THEM! offers it any serious competition for that honor.

THE FLY, then, is a movie that you encounter, and feel like you know, long before you ever actually watch it. Like the “twist” ending to PLANET OF THE APES --which is probably the one thing which is most known about that movie, even (and perhaps especially) by people who have never seen it-- you probably already know, at least in broad strokes, the big shock moments of THE FLY. I’ve seen most of the iconic scenes parodied or referenced in everything from The Simpsons (in their classic “Treehouse of Horror” segment Fly vs Fly) to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which features a minor character who actually has an origin story very similar to the one seen in the movie) to BEETLEJUICE (Michael Keaton quotes the title character’s final moments) to Phineas and Ferb (a teleportation accident involving mixed-up fly parts). And then of course, there’s David Cronenberg’s 1986 loose remake of the same title, which is possibly even more famous than the original, at least in the circles in which I run. Howard Shore wrote a fucking opera version of the story in 2008. That’s about peak cultural saturation.

And yet, somehow THE FLY still wasn’t quite what I expected. Not entirely, anyway. I mean, on one hand, it is entirely, almost quintessentially a 1950’s mad science film. You’d be hard pressed to find a single 30 second sequence which could not be immediately identified as a 1950’s mad science film even completely isolated from any other context. The cinematography is of the stagey, candy-coated technicolor school, full of lush, warm lighting and pristine theatrical sets which seem to owe their genesis more to the imagination of Norman Rockwell than anything which ever existed in the real world. The acting is of that theatrical, pre-method-acting variety, with broad, uncomplicated performances which could play to the back rows of a stage theater quite comfortably. The dialogue is no more naturalistic, full of turgid, purple philosophical monologues and earnest declarative proclamations (“It would be funny, if life weren’t so sacred,” emphasizes a forlorn scientist after mistakenly sending a kitten to another dimension). And the movie has that unmistakably 1950s desire to ensure that the characters are all morally upright to the point of being positively saccharine. No moral ambiguity here, no complicated motivations.

But on the other hand, just like THEM!, THE FLY turns out to be rather darker and more affecting than you’d have any reason to expect going in. I love 1950’s horror cinema, but I can’t imagine even the most sensitive soul feeling particularly horrified by THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS or IT… THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE. I doubt even their creators imagined they would disturb and unnerve. They were matinee drive-in fluff for kiddies, full of rubbery special effects, precocious child and silly featherweight melodrama. But THE FLY turns out to be a little more twisted than its brethren. In fact, David Cronenberg's “reimagining” of the film as a body-horror nightmare isn’t as radical a departure from the original as I had assumed. While not as fascinated as Cronenberg was by the messily dysmorphic transmutation of flesh, it’s definitely interested in shocking and disturbing its audience, and in doing so, successfully manages to find an unexpected vein of the grotesque running through the corny 1950’s suburban modernist milieu.

It is the story, of course, of Dr. Andre Delambre (David “Al” Hedison*, most recognizable for playing Felix Leiter in LIVE AND LET DIE and LICENSE TO KILL), a Montreal scientist who is discovered in the film’s opening with his head and arm crushed beyond recognition in a hydraulic press. We don’t see the messy results, but hot damn, that’s a pretty hardcore death to start a movie with in 1958. His wife, Helene (SAYONARA, a multiple-Oscar-winning Marlon Brando-starring 1957 anti-racism movie that I’ve literally never heard of before today***), denies any involvement in his death, but begins behaving extremely strangely, becoming obsessed with flies and unable to discuss what happened. Eventually, Delambre’s kindly brother Francois (Vincent Price, 1975’s “conceptual TV special” Alice Cooper: The Nightmare) shows up and tricks her into telling the sordid tale that lead to Delambre’s untimely (and squishy) demise.

Seems that once upon a time, Delambre was an apparently non-mad scientist laboring to build a matter transporter in his basement (admittedly, that description makes him sound quite mad indeed, but he seems pretty well adjusted. Also arguably  this would actually make him a non-mad engineer, since he’s actually trying to build a device, not test a hypothesis, but let us not muddle the case with needless semantics). He’s a loving husband, but he’s really, really into his work and misses some meals and stuff, which mildly irritates his wife and lets us know that his tragic flaw is that he cares more about making a history-altering scientific discovery than his wife’s home cooking, which in the movie’s opinion means that it’s tragic but inevitable that he’ll eventually have his head crushed by a hydraulic press. I don’t need to tell you what goes wrong, because you already know. One day Helene ventures into the basement to find her husband unexpectedly silent, and hiding his head under a cloth of mystery while scrawling frantic messages to her with the hand he’s not suspiciously holding behind his back. Uh oh.

In one sense, this is a movie conceit which is ludicrous in the extreme -- he ends up with a giant fly head (but his own brain?) and must try and locate the pesky insect which has stolen his own human noggin. I mean, that’s downright kooky, it barely even supports parody it’s so outrageous (the Simpsons episode which references the movie actually doesn’t do anything more ridiculous with the concept than its source material does). If you start asking questions about how, exactly, this works, it quickly becomes clear that it’s utter nonsense. So hard sci-fi it ain’t, but somehow the movie doesn’t come off as comical as it really ought to, by all reasonable standards.

Part of this, I think, is the gruesome opening -- we know this is going to end really, really badly, so there’s an element of inevitability and tragedy here, combined with the engrossing mystery of how our nice scientist ended up at such a desperate point. Part is also the simple but effective imagery, from Delambre’s disconcerting silent, masked form to the elaborate animatronic fly mask and arm, which are utterly absurd, of course, but also detailed and realistic enough to be appreciably repellent. Still, for my money, the biggest reason THE FLY manages to pull off the impossible and become a genuinely unnerving 1950’s sci-fi schlock pic has to do with the existential randomness of it all. Delambre really is a pretty nice guy with a lovely, supportive wife and a genuinely inspired scientific breakthrough. He isn’t some callus Dr. Frankenstein who let his hubris overcome his humanity, he doesn’t even make some crucial misjudgment. There’s just one tiny, random complication he didn’t consider or plan for. In every other parallel universe, this experiment probably went off without a hitch and the guy went on to become the most famous and important human of the century. And yet, in this universe, he’s going to be transformed into a disfigured monster and eventually smashed to death by heavy machinery, which will be, by that point, a blessing. It’s such a terribly cruel and blatantly unfair turn of events that you can’t help but be a little affected by it. In fact, it’s perhaps even more salient today than it would have been in its own time, because of our (completely unwarranted) sense of nostalgia for this “simpler time,” which is presented with exactly the corny, sentimental treacle we expect of it, until it’s suddenly shattered by this bizarre and grotesque intrusion of random fate.

It’s traditional when discussing 1950s horror movies to blather on and on about the sense of fatalism brought on by the apparently imminent nuclear holocaust, which hovered over everything throughout the cold war but was perhaps especially anxiety-ridden in the decade immediately following the Second World War. You could, if you were so inclined, make that case for this movie -- the film’s teleportation experiment, though not explicitly related to the atomic age,*** could be seen as a metaphor for the new era of science powerful enough that a single mistake could have catastrophic and unforeseen consequences. You could even argue, perhaps --just perhaps, and especially since this was based on a French short story-- that maybe poor Dr. Andre Delambre might be a symbol for the post-war modernist ideals, forging forward with good intentions but an irresponsible naivete for how those ideals and their resulting knowledge might unexpectedly transform them into dangerous monsters. There might even be a little autobiographical allusion, strangely enough; short story author George Langelaan actually underwent plastic surgery to alter his appearance and make him a more effective spy for the Allies during WWII. Did he, like the protagonist here, find his own face suddenly transformed into something alien and unnerving?

Mostly, though, I don’t think a movie like THE FLY is meant to be read symbolically. It’s a film which is meant to shock and fascinate, and that’s what it does. From its startling, mysterious opening to its big special-effects reveal to its surreal, grotesque ending, it’s a movie which magnificently threads the line between campy delights and grim body horror. The cast is solid: Owens is absolutely radiant as the doomed scientist’s wife, and has the acting chops to be convincing as both a stereotypical homemaker and a mentally shattered trauma survivor, effectively holding the entire movie together. Hedison is sympathetic as the title character (even though we don’t see much of him after his big transformation, that's him under the mask, not a double) and what the heck, we might as well enjoy Vincent Price in a rare nice guy role.**** It’s not the best use of the big fella, but his overpowering screen charisma is as intoxicating as ever, and he's effortlessly endearing. Director Kurt Neumann (a stalwart B-movie workhorse who had directed nearly 30 movies since 1933, and tragically died a few days after THE FLY’s premier, reportedly weakened by his exhausting work on it) lets the plot flag a little as the backstory begins, and needlessly lets it drag on for ten minutes after the obvious finale, but no matter. It’s a strange and affecting experience not quite like anything else.

Which leaves me with only one complaint, and one which will be rather predictable to those of you who know my usual stance on these mad science pics: Why the fuck does Delambrefly have to go and smash up his lab and burn his notes?! I think the prospect of instant teleportation would be valuable enough to endure a few setbacks. I know he doesn’t want anyone else to get mutated, but all you have to do is keep the flies out of the transportation tube! Hell, install an air curtain and you've fucking changed the course of history! The concept was sound, I say, SOUND!

Anyway, other than that, THE FLY is great. If the 1950’s mad science / monster craze has to be defined by just one film, you could hardly pick a better one -- it brings everything you’d expect from the era and genre, but also a little more. I don’t know if it is, as Vincent Price describes in the trailer, “far beyond anything your mind could conceive,” but it’s also not quite what you probably assume.

************

*Fun fact: his daughter, Alexandra Hedison, is married to Jody Foster. Incidentally, I can’t exactly recall the pronunciation of the Doctor’s name, but writing out “Andre Delambre” makes it look like it rhymes, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. It’s French in the original short story (Canadian here) so it’s anyone’s guess what it should actually sound like.

**Not-so-fun fact: Ricardo Montalban plays a Japanese character.

***Although one of the posters claims the film is about “The Monster Created By Atoms Gone Wild!” they must mean that it’s literally composed of carbon atoms, because unless I missed it there’s no talk of atomic energy here.

****Ironically, the huge success of THE FLY --one of the few famous roles where Price plays a completely nice guy-- seems to have been the deciding factor into making him a fixture of the horror genre, and one of the screen’s most legendary villains. He’d done HOUSE OF WAX in 1953, and THE MAD MAGICIAN in 1954, but was only a sporadic genre actor until THE FLY, from which point he began appearing almost exclusively in horror films. Or at least, that’s the way writer Richard Harlan Smith tells the story.

Woah now, let's not overreact.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2016 CHECKLIST!

Good Kill Hunting

TAGLINE	Horror Of The Winged Menace ! She had to kill the thing her husband had become -- But could she? Once it was human... even as you and I! The monster created by atoms gone wild The fly with the head of a man...! And the man with the head of a fly! It's the terror-topper first introduced to the public in "Playboy" Magazine! 100$ if you prove it can't happen! For your own good we urge you not to see it alone!
TITLE ACCURACY	Totally accurate
LITERARY ADAPTATION?	Yes, from George Langelaan’s short story. Which, incidentally, was first published in Playboy magazine, if you were confused by that 6th tagline.
SEQUEL?	Two sequels, RETURN OF THE FLY in 1959, and CURSE OF THE FLY in 1965
REMAKE?	Yes, Cronenberg’s 1986 remake starring Jeff Goldbum, which also had its own sequel (THE FLY II) in 1989.
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN	Filmed in Canada, but made by an American studio
HORROR SUB-GENRE	Mad Science / Killer Bugs! / Transmutation
SLUMMING A-LISTER?	Well, Patricia Owens had been in an oscar-winning prestige pic with Marlon Brando the previous year.
BELOVED HORROR ICON?	Vincent Price
NUDITY?	None, unless you count flys.
SEXUAL ASSAULT?	No
WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK!	Yes, in the final’s equal parts hilarious / disturbing last twist
GHOST/ ZOMBIE / HAUNTED BUILDING?	No
POSSESSION?	Yes, of a sort
CREEPY DOLLS?	No
EVIL CULT?	No
MADNESS?	Yes, Mrs. Delambre seems to crack up a bit after the horror
TRANSMOGRIFICATION?	Abso-Lutely
VOYEURISM?	Nah
MORAL OF THE STORY	Look, just fucking stop trying to make scientific breakthroughs, OK? It can only end in tears.