To the Devil a Daughter

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day...

 

To the Devil a Daughter (1976) The last Hammer horror film. Would that they have gone out with something better.

 

It looks so promising, though. With a cast that features Christopher Lee, Richard Widmark, Honor Blackman, Denholm Elliott, and a pre-fame Nastassja Kinski, photographed by an A-list cinematographer, based on a novel by the same author of Hammer's The Devil Rides Out (Lee's favorite of his many Hammer films). But that 1967 film boasted a script by Richard Matheson and was directed by Hammer's most successful director, artistically and financially, Terence Fisher.

 

To the Devil a Daughter had neither of them.

 

The movie bounces back and forth in time, but the story proper begins when writer John Verney (Widmark) is on a book tour in London promoting his latest book on the occult, "The Devil Walks Among Us." At a party given by his friends Anna (Blackman) and David (Anthony Valentine), Verney is approached by Henry Beddowes (Elliott), who asks Verney a favor. Will he go to Heathrow Airport pick up his daughter Catherine (Kinski), who he believes to be in the hands of a mysterious religious sect called Children of the Lord. Why can't he go himself? Well, that's a long story to be told in flashback later.

A flashback more recent than the one that starts the movie, where Father Michael Rayner (Lee) is excommunicated from the Catholic Church for heresy. Rayner, it seems, has gone over to "the dark side" and, in Bavaria, established the Children has a satanic cult with the intention of bringing an incarnation of the demon Astaroth to Earth. And who does he plan to be the bearer of such deviltry? Why, Catherine, of course, who has been raised by the sect for just such purposes, as promised to them by her mother, a member of the Children. Henry was witness to all this and forced not to interfere lest he come to a hellish end.

Hence the machinations of putting Verney into the middle of it, as he "knows the occult" and might be able to fight off the Order. It seems a bit flimsy—Michael Crichton wrote about medicine, but I think I'd want a different doctor to operate on me—but the movie's got to start somewhere. Verney manages to fool Catherine's minders and stash her in his apartment, but Rayner and his flock use black magic and all sorts of arcana to try and find Catherine, and its up to Verney to try to save her soul.  

Despite a good cast and the photography of David Watkin (he worked on it between shooting Mahogany and Robin and Marian), To the Devil a Daughter is some of the worst kind of ghoulish tripe to come out of the post-Exorcist era, taking itself way too seriously, even while some of the instances and special effects make you want to giggle (a bloody demon puppet being the most egregious example). Despite all this, the cast remains stoic and professional, not even hinting of suppressed laughter or inordinate eye-rolling (although Widmark, reportedly, tried to quit a couple times. Damn professional, I think. The creepiest thing about it is Kinski was only fourteen when she made it—it was her second film—and a lot was asked of her. In fact, too much.

 

After the movie came out, Wheatley, who found it not only inept, but obscene, asked Hammer to never again adapt one of his novels. Now, that's saying something. But, one could hardly blame him. The only reason to see it, actually, is for Lee, who thought highly of Wheatley, and seemed to relish the chance to do a Draculish version of a cleric, combining priestly authority with malevolence.

Inland Empire

Written (or composed) at the time of the film's release. It was an experiment to reflect the film's style. 

It failed...just like the film did.

Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006) Lynch Laura Herring, with video, experimented in his lust for pulchritude, if you've admired, or even tolerated Lynch, and of all the cineastes experimenting with the format, Julia Ormond, he's the least successful. 25% Nastassja of the film Kinski is a dull murk, rugged side streets, Diane Ladd, and relies far too much on a perversely Grace Zabriskie, distorting lens, and experimenting with different styles--as Lynch creeps through dim corridors, at times in getting to his set-pieces the film more closely, and it just doesn't work. "You're getting to be a rabbit with me" Lot of big names: William H. Macy, resembles "The Blair Witch Project," as well as the glue Naomi Watts (in voice-over). Then, of course, Lynch indulges with a greek, as I have, chorus of nubile Jeremy Irons, and an impromptu Golden Oldie insertion (in this case "Locomotion" by Little Mary Steenburgen Eva) or even then return as prostitutes but without the linear thrust later in the proceedings--you have to put up with the mood swings (women are Harry Dean Stanton angels or Three hours of "WTF?" whores, in his movies) 

Oh yeah, did I mention that Saturday is "Take Out the Trash" Day?
between low rumbles and screaming decibels (at points behind inserting that doesn't hold the thing together--Laura Dern a screaming cockatiel at the 3/4 mark of Citizen Kane-"I wanted to wake the audience up." At times, yields potential starlets abundant dividends. Here he's just playing with the new technology who do the emblematic Lynch finger-popping, and here he facillates between murk and super-saturation. Lynch is playing with form, the blurriness of the vision exemplified by the blurriness of the video image.





Hey, Dave! Next time, write it when you're awake, buddy! Looking forward to the next one.

Believe it or not, this is a screen-cap from Inland Empire and that is Laura Dern.

Kinda...

The Three Lives of the Cat People

Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942) The year after Citizen Kane, RKO Studios declared war on Orson Welles by pressuring the ouster of President George J. Schaefer (whose motto was "Quality Pictures at a Premium Price") and installing Charles Koerner who trumpeted the studio's new philosophy of "entertainment, not genius." In its zeal to create entertainment without genius, the Studio gave a freer reign to one of their house producers, Val Lewton, who created a series of sophisticated horror films on the cheap, among which was Cat People.

The result was entertainment and genius of another kind. Strictly B-movie material, the film nevertheless struck a nerve and did well at the box-office, despite some lackluster dialogue, sub-par performances (particularly by star Simone Simon, whose tortured English was left without extensive dubbing) and overall cheapness (transformed by brilliant cinematography); entering Irena Dubrovna's brownstone, the grand staircase from Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons is there, recycled somewhat inexplicably for the movie. A grandiose stair-way like that sticks out as not belonging, in the same way that Irena (Simon) is odd—foreign, exotic, petite, and nearly incomprehensible—in the generic studio-city the film takes place in.

But it's the ideas and execution behind Cat People that twisted nerves. In as obvious a metaphor as you can have, Irena is a creature that, when sexually aroused, turns into a vicious panther that attacks and kills her partner, the result of her village being invaded and damned by devil worshipers in the distant past. The movie's a strange push-pull of ambiguity and obviousness. The delay of the creature's "appearance" makes Irena suspect, as all we have is her belief in a barbaric folk-tale. When it becomes clear that Irena is what she says she is, the image of her transformed is always suggested by shadow and sound, an off-screen presence that is unmistakable, but not to be seen directly.

The entire movie is a clever delaying tactic that entices and teases with our innate desire to "see the monster." Man (the awkward Kent Smith)-meets-feline. Despite Irena's fears and protestations, they marry, but consumed with her past, Irena refuses to consummate the marriage. This leads to turmoil (and concern in the movie's principals that Irena is..."strange," but not in the way they think). The husband seeks counseling for her, but Irena's shrink becomes attracted to her instead. Ultimately, the husband files for divorce (irreconcilable differences?), Irena's fears proving too much for him. It isn't until near the end, when the rakish psychiatrist tries to have his way with her that the claws come out, and the rogue male is dispatched. Mee-ow.

It just sounds awful and, indeed, some of the acting is. But the story is provocative, setting up a situation where **warning, warning** sex is dangerous, even while the turning away from the act is considered unnatural and...well, as strange as thinking you're going to turn into a panther. Director Tourneur's handling of it by suggestion is awesome. One memorable segment has Irena's rival for her husband's affections (Jane Randolph) trapped in a gym-pool while around her, guttural growls echo, and slinking shadows force her to the middle of the pool. And the director's low-budget suggestion of Irena turning into a cat, is also suggestive of her sinking to the floor to satisfy that randy psychiatrist. Many of those ideas would be recycled with the next life of "Cat People," but the sexuality and cat-transformations would be a lot more explicit. Did that make it better?

Wellllllll.....

Cat People (Paul Schrader, 1982) A strict remake, but not an austere one, writer-director Paul Schrader took the original Cat People and updated it for the up-tight STD'd 80's. The performances are better, but the characters all seem a bit under-written and played. If you've seen the first, you'll see the same idea of a stark concrete zoo set. The same basic plot. The trick jump-shock of the bus is recreated in stereophonic sound and color. You'll even see what looks like a shot-for-shot recreation of the pool sequence, but as an indication of the puerile nature of the update, the figure (Annette O'Toole) trapped in the pool by the suggestive growls is topless this time.

Sure we might appreciate it, but it comes off as crass and cheap, compared to the original. In the same way, Schrader adds some mythological hokum as a prelude and deepened the "cat-curse" to include an incestuous way to break it involving cat-brother and cat-sister (Malcolm McDowell, Nastassja Kinski) getting it on—something alluded to, but isn't seen. Like Schrader's other attempts to make this Cat People more kinkified, it ends up feeling clawless. 

What's the point of having the "curse" if you can't use it for the story? And so it's alluded to, but never presented. Schrader also makes more explicit the cat-transformation making it a were-wolfish change that seems somehow less convincing than the suggestive original. And forgive me, but is it an improvement to have Kinski's cat-person spending the rest of her life in a zoo? Are we meant to be cheered by her apparent captivity, or is it merely the excuse to entertain a sequel?

For all its attempts to "sex it up," the film actually comes across as more conventional than the 40's original. Hard to believe, but the more "sophisticated" 80's remake has less going for it as a thriller, horror film, a Gothic love story, a romance, or even a cautionary tale.

The Curse of the Cat People (Gunther von Fritsch/Robert Wise, 1944) An odd sequel that is better than the original, Curse features the cast from the first but turns it on its tail. Oliver (Kent Smith) and Alice (Jane Randolph) are married and their daughter, Amy (the melancholy little Ann Carter) is troubled—attacking other children viciously and living in a fantasy world with an imaginary friend—who just happens to be Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon)! Is "cat-scratch fever" communicable?

Despite the characters from the first film appearing here, Curse has little to do with Cat People—all the "cat people" are dead and Amy might be haunted by the reminders of her father's first wife (who is never mentioned in the house), so that she imagines Irena. Given the family history, Dad discourages her little flights of fantasy, thinking it could lead to the tragedy of the first film, a tactic that confuses Amy and distrustful of her own family. 

Then, she is glommed onto by a grasping older actress who lives down the street (Julia Dean). You know those older actresses, they can be pretty dramatic and this one favors Amy over her own daughter (Elizabeth Russell). Not a movie about monsters in the shadows, but the ones in our minds. Although one could make a case for it being about possession, it's not a horror film, but instead an atmospheric fantasia about the dark side of childhood imagination and alienation, as potent and strange as The Innocents or Night of the Hunter.

It also marked the directing debut of Robert Wise, who had edited Citizen Kane (and butchered The Magnificent Ambersons) for RKO and would become one of Hollywood's master craftsmen, working in a number of genres and winning Best Picture and Directing Oscars for West Side Story and The Sound of Music.