Review: 'Frankenstein Created Woman' Blu-Ray

Frankenstein Created Woman is by far the best of Hammer’s Frankenstein sequels. What could have just been an update of Bride of Frankenstein in the same way The Curse of Frankenstein dragged James Whale’s Frankenstein into the fifties is a totally individual film. Hans (Robert Morris), a young assistant of Dr. Frankenstein (Peter Cushing—who else?), is beheaded for a crime he didn’t commit. The good doctor resurrects him by transferring Hans’s soul into the body of his girlfriend, Christina (Susan Denberg), who’d drowned herself after witnessing Hans’s execution. A badly scarred brunette in life, Christina somehow springs back to life as a blonde with perfect skin—as well as Hans’s yen for revenge against the trio of snotty rich kids who committed the crime for which he was killed. 

Ten Mysterious and Imaginative Edgar Allan Poe Adaptations

According to imdb, Edgar Allan Poe’s works have been adapted 287 times as of this writing. With eight of those not even seeing release yet, the penner of weird and gloomy tales hasn’t fallen off the radar of film and TV creators one iota. That’s a lot of stuff to sift through, and I won’t pretend I’ve seen all of those adaptations. I have seen enough to put together a short list of unmissable realizations of Poe stories, the faithful and the far out, the straight and the surreal, the subtle, the hilarious, the animated, and the bloody. Here are ten great Edgar Allan Poe adaptations you might want to cram in today in honor of his 205^th birthday.

1. The Fall of the House of Usher (1928- dir. Jean Epstein)

Edgar Allan Poe is unquestionably among the most popular writers in history, which accounts for why he’s been adapted so many times. However, his work usually doesn’t lend itself to faithful adaptation. He’s often a lot more interested in piling on the words to fashion a mood than he is in telling a story. Perhaps this too is a reason for his popularity among filmmakers. An oft-adapted story such as “The Fall of the House of Usher” is so lacking in plot that it allows an interpreter to take it in any number of interesting directions. French filmmaker Jean Epstein did that in his silent adaptation from 1928, using spare surreal imagery to convey the dread Poe labors to conjure in his story. With assistance from co-writer Luis Buñuel, then making Un Chien Andalou with Salvador Dali, Epstein welds together an assortment of fantastical, unforgettable images. The odd ones—disorienting POV shots, nightmarish sets, screwing frogs—pack as much power as the ones that are now regarded as spooky movie clichés—mysteriously extinguishing candles, billowing curtains, reanimated corpses. Even as the story takes its liberties with the source material, the presentation conveys the atmosphere of a Poe story uncannily, which is really the most important thing.

2. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932- dir. Robert Florey)

After reworking Dracula and Frankenstein into films that don’t rely too heavily on Stoker or Shelley in 1931, Universal treated Poe with a similar lack of respect with its adaptation of “Murders in the Rue Morgue” the following year. The film works mainly as a vehicle for Karl Freund’s expressionistic cinematography, Bela Lugosi’s sinister mugging and line readings, and Robert Florey’s totally wacko plot developments, such as Lugosi’s plot to prove the theory of evolution by shooting up women with gorilla blood. That twist surely would have tickled Poe, whose macabre sense of humor is lost on all those readers who just think of him as a purveyor of opium-spiked horror. Despite the fact that it didn’t quake box offices, Murders in the Rue Morgue set off a mini cycle of Poe movies for Universal. Ironically, this unfaithful adaptation was the closest thing to a faithful adaptation the studio produced…

3. The Black Cat (1934- dir. Edgar G. Ulmer)

…and for proof of that, check out The Black Cat. The story is actually one of Poe’s clearest, and more faithful adaptations would come in later years (and later on this list too), but Universal was always pretty revision happy, and writer Peter Ruric and director Edgar G. Ulmer get downright slap-happy with “The Black Cat”. So long to the simple plot of marital mania and revenge. Hello to a psycho chess match between Satanic war criminal Boris Karloff and sadistic “hero” Bela Lugosi. Karloff’s ailurophobia allows the film to very, very, very tangentially relate to Poe, but his story has no bearing on Ulmer’s masterpiece otherwise. Karloff and Lugosi have never been better matched, both relishing every line of peculiar dialogue, and with its art deco style and insane brew of Satanism, torture, and head games, The Black Cat may be the best film on this list even if its pretty spurious as an adaptation.

4. The Tell-Tale Heart (1953- dir. Ted Parmelee)

Review: 'The Doors: R-Evolution'

D-Evolution might have been a more appropriate title for the new Doors clips compilation since R-Evolution starts with far and away its best clip. To give the band’s first single a bit of extra promotional pizzazz, Elektra’s Jac Holzman commissioned a promo film for “Break on Through” that’s like watching The Doors’ album cover come to life, the guys lip-synching in moody chiaroscuro. Shot on actual film, this is also the clip that looks best on the blu-ray, many of the others being TV appearances from so-so video sources. The Doors go-for-it in the “Break on Through” promo too, Morrison lunging at the mic as if he was actually singing, but they more often look bored during performances on corn-ball shows like Shebang, Murray the K, and Malibu U, in which the musicians mime on a beach-bound fire engine surrounded by vacantly grinning California girls while Morrison appears in disembodied shots filmed at a later date. The attempt to pass off Robbie Krieger’s brother as Jim in wide shots of the band is not convincing.

Cult Club: 'Wake in Fright' (1971)

In this feature, Psychobabble looks at classic cult items beyond Horror and Rock & Roll. 

Wake in Fright is a horror movie without the things that define a horror movie. There are no ghosts, though it is terribly haunting. There are no serial killers, unless you count the drunken hunters who wantonly slaughter kangaroos in perhaps the most disturbing scene I’ve ever had the displeasure to watch. There are no monsters, unless a town can be a monster. That town is Bundanyabba, or “The Yabba” as the locals call it. They are the demons who do the monster’s bidding. They stupefy its victims with beer. They drain its victims’ resources with sub-moronic gambling events. Then they go in for the kill with a methodical but swift dehumanization process.

Doc on Who Managers Last Minute Sundance Entry

Just a week before the kick-off of Sundance 2014, director James D. Cooper has slipped his documentary Lambert & Stamp into the film festival. While there's plenty of information out there about Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp-- the management team every bit as self-contradictory, self destructive, and flamboyant as their clients, The Who-- there isn't much to glean about Lambert & Stamp. There are two imdb pages for men named James D. Cooper, one of whom is credited as prop guy on a short called "Dolls for Strangers, the other being credited with zilch, so it's probably safe to assume this is his first film. However, we do have this official synopsis from indiewire.com:

LAMBERT & STAMP / U.S.A. (Director: James D. Cooper) — In this crazy, chaotic gospel of chance, aspiring filmmakers Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert set out to search for a subject for their underground movie, leading them to discover, mentor, and manage the iconic band known as The Who and create rock 'n' roll history.

Following its screening at Sundance's U.S. fest, Lambert & Stamp will play at the Sundance London festival, which takes place from April 25 through the 27th.

Review: 'The Jimi Hendrix Experience'

Listen to Jimi Hendrix play and you’ll hear him express an unparalleled rainbow of feelings through his electric guitar: rage and violence and tripped-out mysticism and sadness and confusion and turmoil and extreme horniness and beauty. These same feelings infused his existence despite the sort of benevolent space cadet persona he usually projected in interviews and on stage. In 1983, author Jerry Hopkins got behind the alluring images of an outer-space virtuoso to reveal the real man in his essential biography The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Hendrix did spend a lot of time in the cosmos because of the ridiculous amount of chemicals he regularly ingested, but there is an earthier tale here too. James Marshall Hendrix’s impoverished upbringing was as unglamorous as you can imagine. He spent his young adult years drugging and stealing cars and stumbled his way into the army where his greatest dream was to ascend to a low-pressure job as a file clerk. 

Review: Paul Revere and the Raiders Featuring Mark Lindsay 'Something Has Happened! 1967-1969'

When we last left Paul Revere and the Raiders they were hitting their creative peak and passing their commercial one with 1967’s Revolution!, the final album represented on Raven Records’ Evolution to Revolution: 5 Classic Albums. After that the group recorded a numb-skulled Christmas album, prepared to part with producer Terry Melcher, and made their already unwieldy name unwieldier when they started going by “Paul Revere and the Raiders Featuring Mark Lindsay.” That unofficial new name was more than a way to cash-in on lead singer Lindsay’s heartthrob status. From this point on, they’d really be his band. Nowhere else would this be clearer than on Goin’ to Memphis, essentially a solo album on which Revere and the Raiders supported him on just one track, “Peace of Mind”. The albums that followed weren’t exactly one-man shows, but Lindsay’s compositions continued to dominate and he took over production duties for good.

Track by Track: 'A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records'

In this ongoing feature on Psychobabble, I’ve been taking a close look at albums of the classic, underrated, and flawed variety, and assessing them Track by Track.

“The biggest thanks goes to you for giving me the opportunity to relate my feelings of Christmas through the music that I love.”

-Phil Spector “Silent Night”

Like so many visionaries, Phil Spector refused to grow up. Perhaps this has been the cause of so many of his problems—his infantilizing of ex-wife Ronnie Spector, his daddy issues, and his fatal obsession with playing with guns—but it is also the source of his art. His favorite toys are the ones found in a recording studio and his favorite time of the year is Christmas. In 1963, Spector attempted to capture the essence of the holiday several months before December 25^th in the less than seasonal setting of sunny Los Angeles’ Gold Star Studios. How would his thunderous Wall-of-Sound work with corny kiddie songs like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman” or the hymn carol “Silent Night” or the easy-listening standard “Winter Wonderland”? Brilliantly, of course, though it has taken longer than Spector surely wished for this to become common knowledge.

Psychobabble Hall of Fame to Open in Cleveland!

Breaking news! After an as-yet unidentified Cleveland museum was accidentally demolished by a slightly moist fart, city officials agreed it would be idiotic to rebuild it, instead deciding to replace that as-yet unidentified museum with a new one called the Psychobabble Hall of Fame! 

All artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. At least one non-shitty contribution to Rock & Roll history is the sole criteria for induction. The ability to apply clown makeup will not be a consideration for induction.

Proposed Museum Design.

Breaking update! The list of inductees has just been announced! It is as follows:

Paul Revere and the Raiders

Outstanding Contribution: Can play brutal bubblegum garage rock while doing choreographed dance moves in American Revolutionary War costumes.
Most Outstanding Work:  The Spirit of '67 (1966)

The Zombies

Outstanding Contribution: Crafted ethereally jazzy pop and masterful, Mellotrony psychedelia. Responsible for the current zombie craze.
Most Outstanding  Work: Odessey and Oracle (1968)

The Pretty Things

Outstanding Contribution: Recorded and released the very first LP length-rock opera. Wore the very first 1970s-length long hair. Rocked terribly hard.
Most Outstanding  Work: S.F. Sorrow (1968)

The Turtles

Outstanding Contribution: Racked up hits by recording consistently wonderful bubblegum folk rock with an emphasis on beautifully stoned harmonies and wise-ass humor.
Most Outstanding  Work: Turtle Soup (1969)

Nico

Outstanding Contribution: Metamorphosed from gorgeous, icy voiced pop chanteuse into ghoulish, icy voiced goth princess. Was the scariest thing about The Velvet Underground, which is saying a hell of a lot.
Most Outstanding  Work: The Marble Index (1968)

Love

Outstanding Contribution: One of the few integrated rock groups of the sixties made a totally new sound with each album, and each one was fabulous. Were LA's coolest underground band, and Arthur Lee could shout as well as he could coo.
Most Outstanding  Work: Forever Changes (1967)
 
The Monkees

Outstanding Contribution: Started as a totally manufactured sitcom pop band, said "Fuck that!" and threatened their record company until they were allowed to be one of the greatest real bands of the sixties. Were pretty awesome even before that. Hated by Jann Wenner, which is practically instant credibility.
Most Outstanding  Work: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, Ltd. (1967)

The Left Banke 

Outstanding Contribution: Single-handedly invented mopey British pop. Were from New York City.
Most Outstanding  Work: Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina (1967)

The Creation 

Outstanding Contribution: Parodied art by setting canvasses on fire on stage. Taught Jimmy Page how to bow a guitar. "Making Time"? Holy shit!
Most Outstanding  Work: We Are Paintermen (1967)

The Move

Outstanding Contribution: Ripped out hilarious power pop, power bubble gum, and power prog rock, often while smashing used cars with sledgehammers. Kept Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne out of trouble.
Most Outstanding  Work: Move (1968)

Procol Harum 

Outstanding Contribution: Invented goth rock even though everyone insists on primarily categorizing them as prog rockers. When they did play prog, Gary Brooker's voice made it soulful prog. Revolutionized the double-keyboard approach. Made their non-singing, non-instrument playing lyricist an official member of the band, which is very considerate. Occasionally wore Merlin costumes.
Most Outstanding  Work: A Salty Dog (1969)

Nazz

Outstanding Contribution: American rockers who kept the concise spirit of '65/'66 British pop alive during the long-winded, jammy late sixties. Were the first thing on Todd Rundgren's resumé.
Most Outstanding  Work: Nazz (1968)


Nick Drake

Outstanding Contribution: Was the king of morbid, introverted singer-songwriters. Made three perfect yet distinct albums.
Most Outstanding  Work: Bryter Layter (1970)

Yes

Outstanding Contribution: Fused Beatlesque pop with prog pretensions. Jon Anderson sang lyrics that didn't even make sense when you were tripping your butthole off. Pissed off your super dogmatic punk buddies.
Most Outstanding  Work: Fragile (1971)

King Crimson

Outstanding Contribution: Are the only prog band you're not embarrassed to keep in your record collection. Robert Fripp did incredibly beautiful things with heavily distorted electric guitar and  incredibly heavy things with the beautiful Mellotron.
Most Outstanding  Work: In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)

Big Star

Outstanding Contribution: For those with no space in their hearts for prog, Big Star were the early-seventies saviors of power pop. But only critics knew that.
Most Outstanding  Work: #1 Record (1972)

Pete Townshend

Outstanding Contribution: Already inducted in old museum as member of The Who, deserves to be inducted in new one for making better solo albums than any other member of a major band and better demo recordings than God.
Most Outstanding  Work: Empty Glass (1980)

The Damned 

Outstanding Contribution: Punk, pop, psych, goth, garage rock, prog. They mastered it all without losing their sense of humor. Made the first punk single and the first punk album and toured the states before any of their British brethren. Outlasted about a million break ups and all the asshole critics who said they'd never last.
Most Outstanding  Work: Machine Gun Etiquette (1979)

The Jam

Outstanding Contribution: Introduced sharp mod style and twelve-string Rickenbackers to seventies punk rock. Made eighties new wave honest and organic even if no one else did.
Most Outstanding  Work: All Mod Cons (1978)

Cheap Trick 

Outstanding Contribution: Were the only traditional Rock & Roll band that mattered during the late seventies punk revolution. Their lyrics were as funny as their two heartthrobs/two slobs image.
Most Outstanding  Work: Cheap Trick (1977)

The Cure

Outstanding Contribution: Made the most thrillingly bi-polar music in rock history. Reinvented the dirge. Reinvented grooming.
Most Outstanding  Work: Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987)

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Outstanding Contribution: Transformed punk rock into avant garde art, transformed the Gothic into the delectably poppy, transformed millions of perfectly nice high school girls into wild-haired, wild-makeupped mini-Siouxsie Siouxs (note: just to confirm, Siouxsie's outstanding ability to apply clown makeup was not a consideration in her induction).
Most Outstanding  Work: A Kiss in the Dream House (1982)

XTC

Outstanding Contribution: Made the best hurky-jerky new wave since Talking Heads and the best Beatles and Beach Boys albums since The Beatles and The Beach Boys.
Most Outstanding  Work: Black Sea (1980)

The Replacements

Outstanding Contribution: Were too crazy to contain, too beautiful to ignore, too drunk to keep it together, and too cool for that other hall of fame.
Most Outstanding  Work: Let It Be (1984)

The Smiths

Outstanding Contribution: Made gloriously shimmering pop for mopey kids who didn't quite understand that Morrissey is really, really, really funny.
Most Outstanding  Work: The Smiths (1984)

Suzanne Vega

Outstanding Contribution: Most often stereotyped as a folk singer, the New York singer-songwriter actually reinvented herself as regularly and audaciously as David Bowie. Possibly the only pop artist to dabble in industrial music without making a fool of herself.
Most Outstanding  Work: 99.9F° (1992) 

Throwing Muses 

Outstanding Contribution: Were the scariest thing ever to come out of Rhode Island. Had the most stellar rhythm section in college rock history and a front woman with a voice that could melt your face faster than the Ark of the Covenant.
Most Outstanding  Work: The Real Ramona (1991)

Guided by Voices

Outstanding Contribution: Made it OK to be a lo-fi, middle-aged, self-made Rock & Roll superstar. Literally released 6,000 albums, including a slick, hi-fi one produced by Rik Ocasek that is amazingly awesome despite what everyone says.
Most Outstanding  Work: Bee Thousand (1994)

The Pixies

Outstanding Contribution: Have you ever heard nineties rock? They're responsible for that.
Most Outstanding  Work: Doolittle (1989)

Nirvana

Outstanding Contribution: Revitalized Rock & Roll after the "hair metal" years. Were the last truly culture-crossing, globally important band of the Rock & Roll era. Only band of previous museum's recent inductees deemed worthy of inclusion in the Psychobabble Hall of Fame.
Most Outstanding  Work: In Utero (1994)

Review: 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad' and 'Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger' Blu-rays

Late in his career, Ray Harryhausen returned to the subject of one of his hugest mid-period successes to make The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. Neither of these films received the accolades or classic status of 1958’s The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad, though I suspect the main reason is that folks started viewing Harryhausen’s DynaMation stop-motion technique as a bit old-fashioned in light of the special effects developments displayed in recent films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes. That Eye of the Tiger came out the same year as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind probably didn’t do it any favors in that department either.

Watching these films today is a totally different experience. While the knowledge that all modern special effects are done by some nerd with a computer has robbed them of their “Wow!” value, Harryhausen’s effects are all “Wow!” In The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), a bat-like homunculus drops a prized golden amulet in the famed sailor’s ship, sending him on a treasure hunt in which he duels with his ship’s animated figurehead and a six-armed Kali statue and encounters a giant Cyclops-centaur and a griffin. In The Eye of the Tiger (1977), his mission to rescue a prince transformed into a stop-motion baboon leads him to fend off a gaggle of bug-eyed goblins and a dinosaur-sized walrus, while also befriending a giant, horned troglodyte. These creatures are as magical as any in Harryhausen’s more critically lauded films, so it’s kind of unfair that they get short shrift just because of the era in which they appeared.

The stories that surround these animals and monsters are better than their reputations too, though the human characters are usually up-staged by the creatures. This is actually particularly true of the better film, Golden Voyage, which drags for the mostly creature-deprived opening 38 minutes but takes off like a monster-packed rocket for the final hour. Still, that film’s Sinbad, played by the reasonably charismatic John Phillip Law, is much more enjoyable than the personality-devoid Patrick Wayne, who plays our hero in Eye of the Tiger. That film makes up for his shortcomings with a stronger gang of supporting players led by Jane Seymour as the baboon-prince’s sister and Sinbad’s girlfriend (she’s a much more engaging heroine than Caroline Munro’s nearly dialogue-less slave girl in Golden Voyage) and Patrick Troughton as the wizard with the knowledge to un-monkey her brother.

However, these being Ray Harryhausen films—the only kinds of films we think of as belonging to the special effects guy rather than the director—the effects are paramount, which is why Golden Voyage comes off as superior. Tiger’s goblins are like poorly designed retreads of Harryhausen’s legendary skeleton soldiers from Jason and the Argonauts. The baboon-prince and the troglodyte are both wonderfully articulate and disarmingly emotive creations, but the other animals are less imaginative than the monsters of Golden Voyage. The overuse of bad traveling matte shots is another issue with Eye of the Tiger.

So it is fitting that Twilight Time has put a lot more effort into their new Golden Voyage of Sinbad blu-ray than their Eye of the Tiger disc. Both films look excellent in high-definition, which is a real relief considering the possibility that stop-motion might not have translated well in such flaw-revealing clarity. Golden Voyage has received an especially careful restoration. Take a look at the details on those fabulous costumes: the golden texture of the Grand Vizier’s frock, the spangles on the villain’s black robe, and the nap of the little patches of purple velvet on his sleeves. Eye of the Tiger isn’t quite as dazzling because it’s a lot less colorful with too many poor-contrast night scenes, though that’s probably more the film’s fault than the restoration’s.

Golden Voyage has some nice extras to match it spectacular visuals. There are three Harryhausen interviews focusing on his earlier films Mysterious Island, The Three Worlds of Gulliver, and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. He talks about his special effects techniques (including animating a real dead crab in Mysterious Island), use of travelling mattes, locations, and props. In the Earth vs. the Flying Saucers featurette, interviewer Joe Dante gets to manhandle the actual UFO prop used in the film, ostensibly because he wants to explain how it works… but you know he just wanted to play with a really cool toy. There are no details on when these interviews took place, but based on how young Dante looks, I’d guess late eighties/early nineties.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad also features a booklet essay and an isolated musical score track. These extras are included on the Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger blu-ray too, though the only featurette is a three-minute 1958 documentary on DynaMation. It has nice retro value, but Twilight Time would have given this disc more value had it spread those interviews between both discs instead of hording them on one. So Golden Voyage is the totally essential disc, but both are well worth checking out for their underrated main features. But you better not dilly-dally because they’re both only available as limited editions of 3,000 units, as are all Twilight Time releases. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger are only available at Screen Archives.com.