October 2019 – 1000 Films Blog

Posted on October 28, 2019October 27, 2019 by 1000filmsblog · 1 Comment

#243 The Masque of the Red Death

Watched: October 19 2019

Director: Roger Corman

Starring: Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, David Weston, Patrick Magee (double feature night with Seance – we had a Magevening!), Nigel Green, Skip Martin

Year: 1964

Runtime: 1h 29min

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An old woman is given a rose by a red-cloaked figure and all hell breaks loose.

masque3 — “She loves me, she loves me not…”

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Prince Prospero (Price) is a villain and a tyrant. And a satanist. After the Red Death appears in the village providing for his castle, he burns it to the ground with the exception of three villagers. Francesca (Asher), her father Ludovico (Green) and her betrothed Gino (Weston) are taken to the castle to provide entertainment.

masque7 — “No, what I’m saying is I’ll never win an axe throwing competition in this corset!”

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Prospero throws decadent parties for his rich friends to distract from the plague ravaging the outside world. He enjoys humiliating and mocking his guests, but as they seem to have little in the way of dignity, they tend not to mind.

masque4 — “See? I knew that corset wouldn’t hold her back!” “I’d still prefer if she took it off…”

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The prince is into some dark shit though, and his new goal quickly becomes to turn the Christian Francesca to his own faith. His wife (?) Juliana (Court) senses competition and decides to go all in with the whole Satan-thing to please her man. But will their close, personal relationship with the Devil save them from the looming threat outside?

masque5 — “Oh ordlay, ivethgay usway ouryay essingsblay. Amen-ay!”

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Another Poe, Price and Corman collaboration, and we’re living for it. Vincent Price is his usual fabulous self, and we loved the colours, the clothes, the sets and the story.

masque6 — “My interior decorator was going through a symbolic phase.”

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The start was almost Bergmany with Death hanging around playing cards, and in the end it comes full circle with a bunch of colour-coded Deaths (Illnesses? Plagues?) marching away in a conga line of doom.

masque2 — “Day-o! Daylight come and me wan’ go home!”

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An excellent Halloween movie and wonderful entertainment all around, The Masque of the Red Death is everything you would expect and more. Love, love, love this.

What we learned: Don’t sell your soul to Satan over a guy. Do it for yourself!

Next time: The Naked Kiss (1964)

Posted on October 21, 2019October 21, 2019 by 1000filmsblog · 2 Comments

#242 Seance on a Wet Afternoon

Watched: October 19 2019

Director: Bryan Forbes

Starring: Kim Stanley, Richard Attenborough

Year: 1964

Runtime: 2h 01min

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Myra Savage (Stanley) holds seances in her house for a living, but she feels very underappreciated. With her gift she should be more famous! Luckily her “spirit guide” has an excellent idea. Why not assist in a kidnapping case and get loads of publicity?

seance2 — “It is my right. I am a special snowflake. The spirits tell me so.”

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The unfortunate lack of local missing children will not stop this gal – if no children are willing to go missing for such a noble cause, she will just have to rope her submissive husband Bill (Attenborough) into taking care of it.

seance3 — “Don’t think of it as a felony. Think of it as a bonding exercise to save our marriage. 9 out of 10 therapists recommend trying new things together!”

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With little Amanda Clayton safely stashed in the nursery, Myra contacts the anguished parents to offer her services. For free, of course. She would never consider making money off of other people’s misery.

seance4 — “Why, officer, that would be completely immoral. I would not dream of charging this wealthy couple for helping them. But there’s nothing wrong with getting my name in the paper, is there?”

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This movie is so good! It’s an intriguing and engaging psychological thriller, and very atmospheric. Thematically (and atmospherically) it would go excellently with The Haunting and The Innocents for a creepy-and-suspenseful-with-possible-supernatural-elements British triple feature extravaganza. A little Halloween tip for all you non-party people out there.

seance5 — This is our perfect Halloween. Preferably with even fewer people.

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We loved the mysterious start and the gradual exposition. The relationship between Myra and Bill is fascinating, manipulative and very unhealthy, and it is extremely well portrayed by the two stars.

seance6 — “Look dear, when I said I wanted you to dress up in a nurse’s uniform this was NOT what I had in mind!”

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What we learned: The best laid plans… Also, does “The Swan and Edgar” still exist? ‘Cause that’s a name we can get behind! (Apologies if this is like a super-famous place that we Norwegians have somehow missed. Our cultural knowledge is vast yet limited.)

Next time: The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Posted on October 17, 2019 by 1000filmsblog · 1 Comment

#241 Red Desert/Il deserto rosso

Watched: October 16 2019

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Starring: Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Carlo Chionetti

Year: 1964

Runtime: 1h 57min

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Giuliana (Vitti) is not doing too well. After a car accident she has not been herself, according to her husband Ugo (Chionetti). But was it the accident that changed her? Her conversations with her hubby’s business partner Corrado Zeller (Harris) reveal that all may not have been peachy even before the incident.

red2 — “Oh, I’ve never had any ill effect from being the only dab of colour within miles. Never bothered me at all, no way!”

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Whatever the reason might be, she is clearly not completely stable, and Ugo is incapable of helping – or even understanding his wife. Corrado seems more sympathetic but he cannot help her either. Even the prospect of group sex cannot cheer her up, so you know it’s serious!

red3 — Just one pineapple short of being a proper swingers party! (Yeah, this will probably only make sense to people in Molde, Norway. Thanks, Eirik!)

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All around Giuliana, nature is being ruined by industry and she is falling apart with it. She is utterly diconnected from her husband and most other people – even (or perhaps particularly?) her son. The only one she does connect with is Corrado, but it is a relationship which can’t save her.

red4 — You cannot be saved by a man who enthusiastically engages in breaking apart and burning up your sexy, red bedroom cave for momentary warmth and comfort.

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Red Desert is beautiful, fragile and mesmerizing. The bleak environment feels a bit alien in many ways and the film is strangely hypnotic. As often before, we weren’t overly keen to start it (two hours of Italian drama is a lot on a Wednesday night after work) but we were drawn in from the beginning and we really loved it.

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We loved the music, the long takes, Monica Vitti, and the slow development of the affair. Although we found the sex scene very uncomfortable – we’re still not quite sure this was what she wanted..?

red6 — Her look suggests “trapped animal” more than “sexually aroused woman”, but perhaps we’re reading her wrong…

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Definitely one to rewatch at some point!

What we learned: It’s hard to manoeuvre through life with a broken gyroscope.

Next time: Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)

Posted on October 9, 2019 by 1000filmsblog · 1 Comment

#240 Onibaba

Watched: September 30 2019

Director: Kaneto Shindô

Starring: Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satô, Taiji Tonoyama

Year: 1964

Runtime: 1h 43min

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Sometime in the fourteenth century (we think) a mother-and-daughter-in-law team kill stray samurai and sell their stuff for food. The bodies? Dumped in a convenient hole and left to rot.

oni2 — Our disbelief was not quite suspended yet five minutes into the film, so the only thing we could think of at this point was that the dry grass must have really cut into the actors’ backs! Tres uncomfortable!

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A neighbour returns with news of their son’s/husband’s death, and the two women dispair. For a few days. And then the new widow starts sneaking off in the night to get her rocks off with the neighbour.

oni3 — The Queen of Eyebrows does not approve

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Mother worries that her partner in crime will leave her to her own devices now that she has a new lover. But when she meets a strange samurai with an even stranger mask she hatches a devious plan.

oni4 — Her new hobby: hanging out in fields at night with an unknown light source popping up at just the right time!

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Onibaba was strangely unsettling and it stayed with us for a long time after the credits rolled. From the animalistic lives of the two women in the beginning, to the demonic mask and the creepy ending, we were completely engaged.

oni5 — Admittedly, we thought Sir Brags-a-lot kind of had it coming, the way he treated his guide

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We loved the contrasts of light and dark, the intense music, the non-sexualised nudity, the mask, the epic eyebrows, and the general disconcerting feel of the entire piece. This is one of those movies we would probably never have watched if it weren’t for the list, so thank you Edgar. We loved it!

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What we learned: Don’t shame two single, consenting adults for enjoying a healthy sexual relationship.

Next time: Red Desert (1964)

Posted on October 1, 2019 by 1000filmsblog

#239 Goldfinger

Watched: July 5 2019

Director: Guy Hamilton

Starring: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman, Bernard Lee, Harold Sakata, Lois Maxwell, Shirley Eaton

Year: 1964

Runtime: 1h 50min

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007 (Connery) is back, rising from the water with a bird strapped to his head as secret agents are wont to do. Under his wet suit an immaculate dinner jacket, and he is ready for a night of gambling and spying.

gold1 — “Carnation in place, now to complete the look with my duck hat!”

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The target, Auric Goldfinger (Fröbe), is cheating at cards so Bond takes one for the team and seduces his accomplice Jill (Eaton) to ruin Goldfinger’s winning streak.

gold2 — Anyone who’s ever been flirted with by a man in a powder blue playsuit knows that the success of this tactic is a clear testament to the magnetism of Sean Connery

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After a night of shenanigans, and a possible concussion, Bond awakens to find Jill dead, covered in gold paint. But who could have commited this golden crime? The prime suspect is none other than Gold Goldlimb himself.

gold3 — “However did you jump to that conclusion..?”

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On his quest to stop Goldfinger and his nefarious plans, Bond also encounters Pussy Galore (Blackman), his nemesis’ flying ace and all round brilliant lady.

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We enjoyed this a lot more than From Russia with Love, partly because no teenagers were forced to spend a night pleasing Bond in order to get married in Goldfinger. In fact, the women in this one have a lot more agency than those in its predecessor.

gold6 — We were huge fans of the ridiculously elaborate murder machines in Goldfinger’s possession. Someone actually had to construct this thing!

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We loved Pussy Galore, the title sequence, Oddjob, the gadgets, the golf game, the car chases, the pilots and of course the antagonist’s convoluted plot and his obsession with gold. And sure, we enjoy James Bond himself too, and this is definitely one of our favourite Bond movies. Although we would NEVER fall for a man in a baby blue playsuit. Never.

gold7 — You know a Delta Nu would never sleep with a man in a romper! We just liked to watch him swim around with a duck on his head.

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What we learned: Austin Powers makes a lot more sense after a few early Bond films.

Next time: Onibaba (1964)