Today is an odd period for science,  I think.  People in social media proclaim that they "effin'" love it,  and more often than otherwise,  the new breed of Evangelical atheist fundamentalist speaks of science in near anthropomorphic terms.  To hear the phrase, "science tells us..." is an everyday occurrence now,  and one wonders in which sense the speaker means this to be understood; especially so in the same environment in which specific scientific observations by Charles Darwin are often taken out of context and used as homilies for the improvement and clarification of one's moral character.

Things are getting weird.

Especially,  in my opinion,  as we have historically looked upon the dangerous potential of science with a suspicious eye.  The cautionary tale of Frankenstein's corpse reanimation project is emblematic of this feeling,  and really, literature and film are full of dystopic nightmares which virtually begin and end with the unfettered reach of the scientific mind.  Those secular fundamentalists laugh at this idea as backward and silly,  but historically,  it was exactly this type of creative mind that concocted this line of thinking in the first place.  Is the post-apocalyptic theme,  for instance,  that far removed from our experience?  I don't believe it is,  and so apparently do a huge number of writers of speculative fiction in film, radio drama, pulps, comic books and novels.  The fear of the damaging potential of science is always at hand.  Beginning with Hiroshima and Nagasaki,  the toxic excesses of science are all over modern history,  in spite of attempts to place the blame on the users of these ideas;  greenhouse gasses, GMO's, global warming (internal combustion engines weren't invented by the cowboys), predator drones, heat-seeking missiles, nuclear power plant disasters (Chernobyl, Three-mile island, etc.), firearms of all kinds, bacteriological weapons, advanced privacy invasion tech, and on, and on, and on.  Currently, flying robots are actually killing humans, and if one considers the fact that the original Atomic bomb testers didn't know if they would set fire to the atmosphere,  or later, whether the Large Hadron Collider would open up an Earth-swallowing black hole or not,  we really must question the judgements of what is being done in the name of this odd and rapidly growing new religion.

Science has a lot to answer for; if one puts relatively godlike power in the hands of what are virtually children, then one should logically be responsible for the result.

These are very much the issues that the 1970 (1969 in the credits) film COLOSSUS, THE FORBIN PROJECT deals with.  Based on the COLOSSUS trilogy of dystopic novels by science fiction author D. F. Jones,  it stars the  soap opera star Eric Braeden (who, besides his role on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, also played charismatic German officer Hans Dietrich  on the classic WWII-era TV show THE RAT PATROL) as the calmly serious Dr. Charles Forbin.  Forbin has created the titular super-computer COLOSSUS as a sort of missile defense shield,  devised for the protection of America against the ever present cold war threat of then-Communist Russia.  Forbin,  in conjunction with his team of scientists (populated by hilariously recognisable sitcom actors like Dolph Sweet and Marion Ross),  present Colossus to the White House in what they hoped would be a spectacular demonstration of what their new machine can do.

To paraphrase the words of Forbin,  Colossus was designed infinitely better than they thought.

Immediately Colossus detects another super-computer named Guardian;  apparently the Russians have also been in the game,  and though a step behind,  their computer is advanced enough to take notice.  Colossus and Guardian begin to communicate.  Within hours,  besides formulating tons of "new knowledge for mankind",  the two machines develop their own language,  and one that only they can understand.  This creates a panic.  The president orders the connection cut off, and Forbin is told to reel Colossus back a few steps.  Not a good plan. Colossus makes the ominous threat that, if communications are not restored,  then "action will be taken".

Nuclear action.

This is the beginning of a tense and arduous journey into a terrifying future for the human race. Forbin concocts scheme after scheme to thwart his nearly-godlike creation,  but in spite of great caution and guile, Colossus eventually and gradually turns him into a prisoner.  There are deaths and assassinations,  nuclear detonations,  and when Colossus is finally given a voice (and a chillingly cold one at that),  the future seems bleak and without hope.  It's intense stuff,  and when one considers the missile defense "shield" that we actually had not long after this film was made,  it's two notches closer to reality than one would like to consider.

As Dr. Forbin,  Eric Braeden was excellent.  He was stable and serious here,  and combined with his naturally charismatic good looks and charm, he really came across as the kind of person who could not only conceive of and produce such an advanced contraption,  he also projected the confidence that turned Forbin into the stern anti-Colossus warrior that he needed to be. The rest of the cast,  in spite of whatever other transgressions they might have done on screen, were fantastically interesting as very human characters in this science-driven technological fiasco.  It was a smoothly directed and dramatically plotted project from beginning to end,  and the funky soundtrack (and I mean, like, wikky-wikky guitars) had a fantastic use of the rapid notes of the Indian Tabla drum to illustrate the technical coldness of computer thought.

This is one on my personal list of childhood movie discoveries,  and other than the best friend that I myself introduced it to,  I hadn't met anyone who had seen it until just a few years ago.  It's easily as good as any of the science fiction films of it's era, like WESTWORLD or THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN,  but seldom gets the love or attention it deserves.  Frankly,  it's this film and others of it's philosophical like that have turned me into the semi-Luddite that I am today;  anything more complex than a Blu-ray player gets a bit of the stinky eye, and that's a fact.  So, considering that guys on the level of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and super-physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking have flatly stated that artificial intelligence is the single greatest existential threat to the future of humankind, COLOSSUS, THE FORBIN PROJECT may end up being a prophetic film in a long list of such...and I don't "effin'" love that possibility.

ADDENDUM:  It occurred to me to mention the 1997 chess match in which Garry Kasparov,  a player who many consider the greatest of all time, was defeated by the IMB computer DEEP BLUE.  This was considered the tipping point in AI advancement, due to the (incorrect) assumption that chess is the prime indicator of human intelligence (in spite of the fact that many grandmasters are little children who know next to nothing about life in general,  and that illiterate, homeless players are often virtuosos). It's chilling to know that it has become an accepted routine that computers beat grandmasters on a daily basis. Jump forward one hundred years,  when robotics and satellite tech has advanced to beyond current imagination,  with computers/robots linked worldwide,  faster and stronger than us,  physically able to perform feats that only comic book superheroes can do,  with brains that can think billions of times faster than the smartest human...we're screwed.

Every once in a while some film fan will regale me with some tale o' love and obsession with some film star or character,  insisting upon their true feeelings for them;  they collect all their photos,  they watch that one special film over and over, etc..  Well,  being a diehard pragmatist and, quite possibly, a harmless type of sociopath,  I've never been able to share that exact feeling.  Oh,  I can be obsessed with an actor,  a film,  even posters well enough,  but to fall in love with an imaginary film character has always been a bit beyond the pale for Clayton Percival Somerset Walter.

Then,  I met...HER.  THE woman, Watson,  THE woman.  Played so very skillfully by the awesome Deborah Kerr in my new ultimate film,  THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP,  I have found a cinema woman, though imaginary, who embodies all that I've ever sought in a lady-type creature of the opposite sex.   Now, although she has all the appropriate gentleman-approved dimensions and accoutrements in pleasant proportion, quite ship-shape and in Bristol fashion (Kerr was 21 when she transformed herself thus),  it is the addition of the traditionally lady-preferred qualities that sends her into my internal stratosphere so  dramatically and dreamily.  The words from this beloved woman's mouth!  So articulate,  so intelligent!  One could give credit to the writers of the script, the dynamic duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger,  but it really is the young Deborah Kerr who gives the erudition and staccato diction to these lines.  Her delivery is so mature, so developed,  and there's an honesty and command of situation here that few (if any) actresses can pull off...but perhaps my love has me biased?  Possibly,  but probably not.

Edith Hunter is what certain kinds of women like to call "strong".  She's untra-confident,  doesn't back down when faced with a conflict,  she observes and reflects,  and she has an understanding of life and her environment that is enviable.  I appreciate all of these thing,  and I also appreciate that she can be thus without also being overbearing, rude,  pushy, and insulting,  qualities which have become so common in female characters when they want to compete with men...dear Edith manifests all of the ideal qualities of strength and eschews all of the negatives.  She's sharp, witty, dignified, in control of herself,  and OH, SO LUVERLY.  The fact that she's fluent in German (which, for perhaps the first time in human history, sounds incredibly sexy),  is familiar with Burschenschaften culture (with the accompanying Mensur fencing tradition,  an interest of mine),  is involved in the issues of the poorly handled Boer war enough to write to our stalwart Lieutenant Clive Candy VC, really makes her the sort of  lady for which a true gentleman ought to possess a great admiration!

Ahem.

When I get my time machine, with it's cinema-universe attachment,  I'm going to go back into time and cross over into Colonel Blimp land; I swear that I'll go to Germany and meet with her,  and quite possibly on bended knee.  That damnably handsome Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff will simply have to bow to a superior affection!



[Added note:  The other people in the film are GREAT too, and the non-Edith Hunter bits are nice as well, so if you're tempted to only watch her portion (like I do sometimes),  you might like to watch the rest...at least once.]

This paean to my lady of loveliness is occaisioned by the  REEL INFATUATION blogathon,  hosted by FONT & FROCK and the inimitabl SILVER SCREENINGS.  Please click on there names here to visit their sites,  and to see who is is love with whom,  and though none of their secret dears  could possibly be anywhere near my one true love,  it's good to see why others might choose someone who is so non-Edith Hunter.

For curiosity's sake,  if nothing else.  :)

Addendum:  Much of the basic premise of COLONEL BLIMP speaks to the effect that a woman can have on a man;  how even a casual connection may linger for a lifetime.  I've had many conversations with men in which they've recounted encounters, seemingly trivial to the outsider (such as a brush-up against the shoulder of a crush in passing during a break between 7th grade classes), which are recalled from time to time as a treasured experience.  Men are more emotional than society often allows,  and once written upon,  a man's heart carries a feeling to the end of his days...to one degree or another.

I've even had my own Edith Hunter,  which I bungled,  much as Clive Candy did,  and her intoxicating anima haunts me to this very moment,  nearly fifteen years after the fact.  I can only imagine how devastated I would be if I were Mr. Candy,  dazedly watching   as  a woman as amazing as Edith Hunter drifted away right in front of my eyes,  never to be seen again.

From Men in Black:

Jay: You know what they say. It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Kay: Try it.

Relatively hot on the tail of the shockingly fantastic 1953 James Craig 'North-Western' FORT VENGEANCE (got from the Warner Archive),  I wanted to both see and review another of his Mountie movies, NORTHWEST RANGERS (one of the many not in my already sizable collection).  No luck.  I looked for it wildly, even with some of the grey market bootleggers on line,  but I couldn't find it. It was a tad depressing. So, having heard a fellow film scribbler's call of distress, fab fellow movie bloggist and all-around interesting gal-type lady Kristina Dijan, who is one of the stalwart duo responsible for this very blogathon, came to my rescue.  Having received it in the mail,  I watched it quite pronto-ish.

What a fantastic picture.

The plot is a fusion of a few different themes,  one particularly Mountie oriented,  and a couple familiar from many a lovely classic western...in this case I'm thinking back to the spotless and inarguably wonderful 1954 Audie Murphy western,  DESTRY.  It begins with two young boys,  Frank "Blackie" Marshall,  and James "Jim" Gardiner;  good pals across the board (like brothers, in their own words),  but in nature and temperament entirely different.  Blackie is the wild one.  The defiant one.  Jim is calm and measured.  

It begins with an arrow embedded into a tree,  transfixing a notice about illegal whiskey.  There are many empty liquor bottles on the ground...the boys suspect them to have been left by a group of "drunken Indians" (which is, in spite of a bit of soft racism here, a very real and tragic problem,  even to this day).  A very short time later they find this to be a prophetic observation;  when they arrive at their homestead,  they see that those same Indians have raided the houses, have killed their parents, and have set things ablaze.  

Their lives will never be the same.  

They are taken in by a kind Mountie Sergeant named Duncan Frazier (played with a calmly paternal grace by Jack Holt,  star of one of my favourite serials, HOLT OF THE SECRET SERVICE).  Skip ahead to adulthood,  and Blackie (played charismatically by James Craig) and Jim (given a cheerfully confident vibe by William Lundigan) have followed their natural inclinations in very likely fashion.  Blackie has become  a bit of a dapper cardsharp with an eye for the ladies and the main chance,  and Jim has become the very pride of the Royal Canadian Mounted police (at that time called the Northwest Mounted Police).  As adults in a very real world,  those natures are set to collide,  and they do...in spectacular fashion.

Toss in the luminescent Patricia Dane as sparky and intelligent love triangle fodder, with John Carradine as an evil-yet-charming owner of a gambler's saloon, and a great spot for Keenan Wynn for good measure,  and you have the stuff that makes for a supremely fulfilling movie watching session!

NORTHWEST RANGERS, as you may guess,  is a rollickin' good time,  and in that spirit I highly recommend it.  As I mentioned, James Craig,  who I've reviewed previously in FORT VENGEANCE (HERE),  is really one of my 'watch pocket' actors these days;  guys that aren't really famous but should be,  that I keep in a special little category of personal favourites.  Although it's really Craig's movie, William Lundigan is also quite good,  and he brings across the feeling of those Mountie ideals that I admire so much.  The direction, typically tight in true Mountie picture fashion, is well done by Joe Newman,  director of the amazing 1952 Tyrone Power Mountie film PONY SOLDIER and THE BRUTAL 1958 Joel McCrea western FORT MASSACRE,  and the script is the same, written by Gordon Kahn and David Lang, from a story by Arthur Caesar.

This is about as good a film that one could pick for a Canada Blogathon, as it makes me want to go north and breathe the fresh air and hike a mountain!  I'd like to again thank Kristina Dijan of SPEAKEASY for the opportunity to see this great Mountie film.

This is a part of the 2016 O' CANADA blogathon,  put on by SPEAKEASY and SILVER SCREENINGS!  I'm happy to have the opportunity to join in on the fun once again.  Please go visit their pages HERE and HERE to give love to Canadian and Canadian-themed movies!  Two of my fave blogs,  for sure.

SEE ALSO:  A recent post of another GREAT Mountie film,  CARYL OF THE MOUNTAINS (HERE)

They said that the sun never sets on the British Empire;  well,  in a different sense it did, as it no longer exists.  There was a lot of amazing cross-pollination of cultures and ideas at that time,  with poetry, literature and art extolling the virtues of Queen Victoria and her predecessors & successors.  Films were made from the earliest days of the art,  and a great many of them are legendary, with some of the best actors in history!

They said that the sun never sets on the British Empire;  well,  in a different sense it did, as it no longer exists.  There was a lot of amazing cross-pollination of cultures and ideas at that time,  with poetry, literature and art extolling the virtues of Queen Victoria and her predecessors & successors.  Films were made from the earliest days of the art,  and a great many of them are legendary, with some of the best actors in film history!

One thing that should be known about me is that I'm a fan of Mountie stuff.  Radio dramas,  lobby cards,  buttons, knick-knacks,  swag and other Mountie-related nonsense bring the smile of a well-satisfied geek (Check out my Mountie swag series HERE).  Well,  Mountie movies are very much on that list.  I own at least forty in various formats,  and I haven't seen a bad one yet!  Well, it was relatively recently made known to me that there are Euro/Spaghetti Mountie westerns,  and I LOVED the idea!  I grew up with Sword and Sandal pictures,  and in the last half-decade I've developed a taste for both Spaghetti Westerns and the Poliziotteschi cop movies,  so adding Mounties to the mix was an exciting prospect.

I now have a good pile of them!  I was able to find a source with every Euro-Mountie film that my research has been able to discover.  One of these is the Italian/Spanish production, Kitosh, The Man from the North, originally titled Frontera al Sur (Frontier of the South),  filmed in Spain in 1967.  Though it was apparently filmed in Spanish, I've only seen a dubbed version.  It's as well-dubbed as any of these films, and although this particular copy is an occasionally brutal pan-and-scan,  it's highly watchable.  Any port in a storm, wot?  I've yet to see a DVD release of it,  and many Euro-western fans don't even know it exists!

It stars George Hilton as the rakish tracker/woodsman/gunfighter David Kitosch.  This seems to be a name very much in line with traditional Spaghetti naming conventions;  the Italians in particular have a unique perspective on the American west,  and they tend to pick some really odd,  but macho-ish-ly cool names for their gunslingers.  Kitosch fits right in with some of the many odd names in the genre,  particularly the famous ones:  Manaja, Keoma,  Sabata, Sartana, and the most famous of them all, Django (the gunfighter, not the guitarist).  Names in general are certainly a big part of the magic of a western character, and the Italians know it very well;  so much so, in fact, that the baddest of the gunfighters is a man with no name!  It's an interesting and effective convention...it sets our guy apart from the crowd, and imbues him with strangeness, and it ties him to the various qualities of the cowboy hero/anti-hero archetype.

Typical of the Euro-western, Kitosch is very much in the anti-hero camp.  Between the debauching of beautiful women and running from hostile Aboriginal Canadians (traditionally referred to as "indians"), he works with the Royal Canadian Mounted police as a scout.  To let us know from the beginning what kind of guy our character is,  Kitosh, The Man from the North begins with a kiss;  Kitosch smooches the wife of White Wolf, a local native chief,  and immediately we're on the run!  In wide-eyed haste, he horses-up and makes tracks for the fort of the local Mountie contingent,  with the afore-mentioned indians on his tail.  From then on the plot goes a bit cosmic and stream-of-consciousness-ish.  Kitosch is asked to travel with the Mounties to protect a shipment of gold from a large band of outlaws,  which he declines, and then there is a carriage full of beautiful women (each of whom seem to have a different emotional issue),  who seem to have not much of a raison d'être (other than being both A) beautiful, and B) women), and,  of course, there is the mysterious Mountie Major Baker, played by Pierro Lulli, the uncrowned king of the Peplum/Sword and Sandal film.  He is Kitosh's foil throughout the story,  fighting for the upper hand over him (in fact, impersonated by Kitosch for much of the picture,  much to his chagrin).  Throw in gunfights (fights in general, actually...diverse and plentiful),  piles of gold bars,  Mountie action, a Christian indian named Joseph, and more unpredictable plot turns than three Republic serials,  and you have this film in a nutshell. 

It's all very surreal.  Surreal,  and EXTREMELY enjoyable.  It took me a few minutes to grab a hold of the flow of the thing,  but once I got the interior logic (or whatever term you would use to describe the interior flow of this swirling mass of themes and storyline),  it was quite an amazing ride.

I was excited when I heard that Hilton was in this one.  I'm a big fan of the Franco Nero Spaghetti Western masterpiece Massacre Time,  filmed the year before Kitosch (and reviewed by me HERE),  and Hilton was awesome in a supporting role as Nero's character's brother.  He has such a strange vibe;  one part chaotic clown,  a couple parts daring hero,  and a dash or two of emotionally volatile killer.  Though he often plays a role with humour,  it is very seldom (in my view) that it's ever really that funny.  He has an anti-hero's edge that cuts,  even when he's making what is obviously meant to be humorous.  His characters are the types of fellow upon which the good side is best to be,  and I suspect it may have been the same for the man himself.

Actually,  1967 was quite a year for George Hilton.  Typical of European actors of the time,  the  was in at least eight movies that year,  including the one immediately following Kitosch, the Man From the North,  Il Tempo Degli Avvoltoi ("The Time of the Vultures" in English,  released as "Last of the Bad Men"), in which he also plays a Kitosch character.  I say "a" as opposed to "the",  because I'm not certain they are, in fact, the same character,  in spite of the temporal proximity of the two films.  That's the beauty of the "Spaghetti".  The logic and reasoning issues  that so often destroy American low-budget movies don't apply;  in fact,  as Kitosch proves,  the less attached you are to the normal strictures of life,  the more ecstatic your watching experience will be.

I suggest that you get out your tin-foil Mountie hat and put Kitosch in the DVD player...it's awesome.

I have a couple related side-notes:  The copy of Kitosch, The Man Who Came From the North that I have came from Euro Trash Cinema. It's pan-and-scan,  but a good, clear copy dubbed into English.  Craig is a fast shipper, and he has a HUGE collection,  including many Spaghetti/Euro Mountie pictures, including Cormack of the Mounties (Guibbe Rosse),  Jesuit Joe,  Django Does Not Forgive (Mestizo),  Cavalry Charge (La carga de la policía montada), and Rebels of Canada (I tre del Colorado).  You can watch Last of the Bad Men on Youtube (as well as Hilton's 007 James Bond adventure, 2 Mafiosi Contro Goldfinger under the title Goldginger).  Have fun!

As we begin,  we see the bombed-out husk of a hospital in downtown London,  apparently right in the middle of Hitler's brutal Blitz.  Our hero,  Captain Terence Stevenson (played by Robert Donat) sits,  straddling an unexploded bomb, half-buried in the dirt.  Above him,  in what remains of the hospital,  lies a small boy who cannot be moved,  attended by his nurse.  Stevenson gets out his tools;  it's his job to diffuse the device, and, as the constantly Nazis made ever-changing designs with increasingly creative detonators,  this is a job for a creature with iron-hard guts.  The little boy, curious,  asks Stevenson questions,  and as the officer dissects the workings of this killer, he chats with him, calm as can be. 

This is how we're introduced to the 1943 British production,  The Adventures of Tartu,  also known as Sabotage Agent.  It's a perfect start to a perfect spy film;  the trail ahead is constantly changing and treacherous,  and without a quick wit and a steady hand, death is possible with the slightest mistake.  It's this bravery that brings him to the attention of British military intelligence.  Stevenson,  a Romanian-born Brit who went to university in Germany (studying chemical engineering), and perfectly fluent in both languages, is chosen to go into Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to destroy a munitions factory that is producing poison gas "on a huge scale".  He's given a cover alias,  that of Romanian chemist Jan Tartu, a chemical expert, and a member of the pro-Nazi Romanian "Iron Guard".

Contrary to the typical spy archetype, Tartu is a bit of a twit.  He's a twit,  a charmer, a dapper slickster, and a gigolo, described by a Brit agent as "an officer, but not a gentleman".  He dazzles the Nazis with double-speak and tomfoolery, all the while disguising a hard, metal gaze.  It's very much along the line of Tyrone Power's magnificent killer buffoon in the 1940 classic, The Mark of Zorro.  Donat plays most every moment with guile and mobile charm.  There are no wasted facial expressions,  and his timing is that of a master comedian; constantly shifting, adapting to every new danger.  There are, in spite of these skills, moments when Captain Stevenson is forced to bear some completely intolerable stuff, and we do see him peer out of his Taru mask,  horrified.  Stevenson, after all, is not the fool that Tartu is;  he's a very human being...one who feels every atrocity to the bone.

Donat is really impressive in this one.  He has all the charm of a Ronald Colman,  and that classic British steel that one requires for this type of thing is his in spades. In many ways, this film is more John Buchan-esque than Donat's actual Buchan film, The 39 Steps.  Tartu could very well be one of Buchan's stalwart, stiff-upper-lip British heroes,  playing the fool one moment,  then killing the enemy with a chilling calm the next.   It's amazing to me how exciting and ever-shifting the vibe is throughout Tartu,  when one considers that the director, Harold S. Bucquet, was mostly known for the Dr. Kildare series.  I enjoyed those Kildare movies for sure,  but I had no idea that something this amazing was in him!  It goes to show that a solid director,  given a  killer script,  and an amazing cast (Valerie Hobson, co-star of another spy-type  masterpiece,   Q Planes, was in-credible here), can produce miracles!

Harry Houdini.  It seems that everyone knows that name;  it evokes images of mystery and magic,  of locks, and chains, and daring.  It has always been a magical name for me.  I've been a Houdini fan since childhood,  and honestly,  in the beginning, at least,  I can't remember why.  I must have seen one of those incredible posters,  or maybe one of the many shorts about his fantastic escapes.  In any case,  he's always been a hero of mine, and I'm not alone.  

Houdini, for the one or two people on Earth who might be unaware,  was a master escape artist.  He was chained and put in iron boxes,  handcuffed and thrown off bridges into rivers, and sealed inside water-filled glass canisters ~upside down~,  and always managed to escape.  He was challenged by police stations to escape the most modern cuffs,  and, perhaps most famous of all, was put into straight jackets,  each time only to escape,  with that trademark Houdini grin...that was seemingly half-grimace.

He was just about the most popular entertainer on Earth at the peak of his career,  and it was inevitable that at some point that a figure of his gravitas would break into the new medium of film.  Houdini made five pictures between 1919 and 1923,  and Haldane of the Secret Service was the last of these.  Produced and directed by the man himself,  Houdini played the stern Heath Haldane, a "sworn servant of the Dept. of justice". The setting is Chinatown ("A place not visited by sightseeing parties"), and Haldane is on the trail of the mysterious Chinese supervillain Dr. Yu, and the brutal gang of counterfeiters who murdered his father, "silent Saunders" Haldane. *

"Silent Saunders",  as described by the main gangster (the slimy Joe Ivors), was the "slickest bull that ever took our trail", and was murdered to get him out of the way. A critical mistake for the Chinatown gang!  From there our Magician/Agent/hero gets numerous chances to use his fantastic escape skills in various exciting scenarios (and even a little Ju-jutsu!),  until the final, shocking conclusion...in which we are offered a chilling surprise.  Like all of Houdini's movies,  I enjoyed Haldane quite a bit.  It's the most plot-heavy of the five,  with a strong dime novel feel throughout.

Honestly, I wish it had also been released in that format!

Apparently the Houdini films didn't take the world by storm on their release.  Perhaps the world wasn't ready to see him on screen,  or perhaps, in an era with so many amazing films,  his were unremarkable relative to the rest of his career.  Personally,  I think if you take them on their own merits,  guided by the uniqueness of their existence as Houdini memorabilia, they have a fun magic all their own.  I recommend Haldane of the Secret Service for fans of silent films, dime novels, and the legendary magician.

What person even slightly interested in history doesn't know those eyes?   Burning and possessing,  they drill into one's guts,  those eyes of Grigori Rasputin,  known as the mad monk.  To some he was a saint;  his wife loved him dearly,  and for years after his death she extolled his virtues,  even going so far as to have tolerated his many sexual excesses with other women.  To others he was a vulgar, drunken pig;  in still-existing audio interviews, he was described as loud, filthy and rude,  the kind of man who would eat greasy meat with his hands, and then pat a nicely dressed person on the back.  To others he was the most dangerous man in Russia,  whose affecting gravitas held the Romanov Tsarina (and thus the Tsar) under his control.

In reality Rasputin was never a monk.  He was an itinerant Siberian peasant,  a wandering proselytizer, well-versed in biblical knowledge, considered by many to have psychic powers, as well as the ability to heal illness.  It's the last quality that brought him to the the Romanovs.   The Tsar's son,  Alexei, still a young child, was a hemophiliac;  after a series of helpless doctors and even more useless faith healers,  Rasputin came and healed the boy,  using only (by his declaration) prayer.  From that moment on,  until his murder by poison, gunshots and drowning (apparently he was very difficult to kill),  a small part of the destiny of Russia was in his hands.

There have been a great many films about this odd figure,  but for the Great Villain Blogathon I'll be presenting a two-fer;  of all the films I've seen on the subject,  these two are my favourites by far.   The first of the two-fer is the 1932 stunner Rasputin and the Empress;  it shines for so many reasons, not the least of which is that it stars the entire Barrymore family,  John, Ethel, and Lionel,  in their only film together (although John and Lionel had appeared together that same year, in the classic Arsene Lupin).   This is very much an old school film in every sense.

Made just a few years after the advent of sound films,  the aesthetic of this movie is still part of the silent film universe;  the use of shadow,  full-room staging, and broad hand and facial gestures are all the stuff of silents, and they really work here.  Of course,  the Barrymores were all accomplished actors by this time (one of the reasons that they're not that well known today),  so they really shine on this artistic borderland.  There are so many visually stunning scenes that it's easy to forget that there's a story sometimes.  I get lost in an image from time to time,  and I find myself pausing the player in order to enjoy them.

Rasputin and the Empress, as the title implies,  really focuses on establishing the relationship between Rasputin and the Tsarina's fears and obsessive love for her child.  There is some pomp and circumstance,  but most of the story revolves around the basic Rasputin story:  sick child, worried mother, faith healer,  suspicion, jealousy,  and finally, murder.  The politics of the story are certainly there,  but they're all conspicuously placed in order to grease the narrative wheels.   In this stripped-down state,  Rasputin's intensity is in sharp focus;  I could really feel why the people around the Tsar felt that he needed to die.

Lionel Barrymore's Rasputin is a confidence trickster.  He heals Alexei with hypnosis,  going as far as to dangle a spinning pocket watch in front of the boy's wide, blank stare.  Rasputin here is always thinking,  always shifting,  controlling every situation with a silent glare or a harsh outburst;  his glare sees all, and everyone around seems to know that.

Barrymore here is very much like he was as Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.  This Rasputin is always the most intense figure in the room,  and you can see why the family were taken over by him.  Barrymore's ability to mitigate the overwhelming effect of extreme facial expressions (of which there are many here) by longer movements and changes of body position, is really masterful.  He's always moving,  but somehow he still seems to be a moody, imposing character, which I find impressive.

Overall, Rasputin and the Empress is a must-see for lovers of early sound pictures.  It may be more of a hardcore film-lover's movie than something for more casual watchers,  but I think that silent movie folk will dig right into it's stark and broadly expressive style.

The first thing that I'll mention about the 1971 historical epic Nicholas and Alexandra is the cast.  Any fan of UK telly will die when they see some of the names here:  Michael Jayston, Lawrence Olivier, Tom Baker, Ian Holm, Julian Glover, Timothy West, Michael Redgrave,  Brian Cox, and Maurice Denham...need I say more?  

They were really going for an epic with this one, and if it had been made ten years earlier, alongside classic monsters like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago,  I think it may have worked a bit better and hit a little harder.  By the early 70's, epic movies of this type were waning,  and to make it work must have been a bit of a struggle.  As it stands,  this is still a very good movie; it juggles many different levels,  and overall,  it does it very well.   That's the biggest contrast between Nicolas and Alexandra and Rasputin and the Empress.  Between the two films,  this is the more political and multi-storied;  we see the politicians in the Duma (the Russian equivalent of a Parliament) fighting for democracy against the Tsar's wishes,  we see peasants being brutalised (with the expected hatred in their hate-burning eyes),  we see Lenin,  we see Trotsky,  and we even see a young Josef Stalin,  all plotting the downfall of the dynasty that had so poorly managed the business of the people.

Tom Baker is an excellent choice for the mad monk.  The same oddness and unpredictable charm that makes his Doctor Who so excellent and memorable  combines with a kind of crazed darkness, and it makes for some great watching.  He comes off as a highly amused vampire,  moving from neck to neck,  looking for the juiciest artery.  Apparently there had been plans to cast Peter O'Toole as Rasputin (and Vanessa Redgrave as Alexandra),  but limits on the budget forced the producer into less exalted levels.  I consider that a stroke of good luck.  While I like O'Toole,  especially during this period,  I think Baker is the better choice...in spite of the possibility that it may have effected the longevity of the film overall.  In any case,  he was proposed for the role by Lawrence Olivier,  so who needs O'Toole anyway, wot?

What struck me most of all about Nicholas and Alexandra, is that, unlike the equivalent British films (and telly shows) about royalty,  there is nothing grand or sexy about the majestic lives of these rulers.  There are very few dramas, even in Russia,  that portray the lives of the old Russian aristocracy without an underlying darkness.  History, as they say,  is written by the victors,  and in Russia, the royals...lost.  Nicholas and Alexandra really tried to mix in a glamorous love story between the titular twosome,  but for any reason other than context,  it failed to draw me in.  To be honest,  the only truly powerful character in the entire movie is Rasputin himself,  and I think that,  as in reality, was the reason that he had to die.

Power is for the powerful...not for hedonistic holy peasants.

I would really recommend this movie to people who love to watch good actors doing what they do best.  The plot is a little uneven,  but the quality of the filming,  sets, and costuming balance out whatever the story lacks.

As a side note,  here are a few of the legion of actors that have played the so-called mad monk to greater or lesser degrees of success:  Conrad Veidt in Rasputin, Dämon der Frauen (1932),  The Suspense TV episode The Black Prophet with Boris Karloff (1953), the over-the-top Christopher Lee in the Hammer film Rasputin, The Mad Monk (1966), Aleksey Petrenko in the maniacal Russian production Agoniya, and two more television efforts: Alan Rickman in Rasputin (1996), and Gérard Depardieu in the French production Raspoutine (2011).    I'd really love to see the Veidt version!

To be honest, this is a bit of a trick review.  The point of this, for the Great Villains Blogathon, was to present a film or two that featured a fantastically villainous figure;  I've thus far focused on the amazingly dark character of Rasputin, for seemingly obvious reasons.  The true villain of the story,  to me,  was the Tsar himself.  The decadent excesses of the Romanoff family (contrasted against the most extreme poverty imaginable), the vicious and merciless treatment of the Russian people (Bloody Sunday and the Khodynka Tragedy), Anti-Jewish pogroms, the losses in the war against Japan over Korea,  the incompetent management of the first world war, all leading to his execution by the Bolsheviks, who, in their Soviet incarnation, ruled the Russian people with an iron hand for the better part of a century. By comparison, the manipulative debaucheries of Grigori Rasputin seem like kid stuff.  It's no surprise,  at this point, that both the films that I've reviewed here end with the execution of the Tsar,  his family, and household staff.

I recall a scene near the end of Doctor Zhivago, in which the soldiers, battered by the brutalities of WWI trench warfare, were marching toward home, revolution, and true change.  There was a determination in their eyes,  and nothing,  including mass murder, was off the table to make that change happen.

That determination,  the motive force of the Bolsheviks, was born in the actions of the Tsar...the true great villain.

Those are the stiff-upper-lip words that begin the brilliant novel King of the Khyber Rifles,  written in 1916 by the legendary London-born adventure writer Talbot Mundy.  Mundy was famous for his tales of the British Raj (Raj means "reign" in the Hindi language), during their occupation of the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan during the rule of Queen Victoria.  Inspired by real-life titans, such as the polymath and polyglot, Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, his books are the proto-typical ripping yarns;  his stalwart adventurers faced the dangers inherent in trying to control that wild and culturally diverse region.  Like Rudyard Kipling,  Sax Rohmer and H. Rider Haggard,  his stories are from the British perpsective,  but like Haggard,  Mundy leaned slightly more toward the east.

The protagonist of the novel is Captain Athelstan King,  an agent of her majesty in what was at that time northern India (now Afghanistan and Pakistan) during the first world war. As in reality, the war was in mid-swing during the novel,  and the Germans and Turks were determined to foster unrest in the tribal areas to further burden their British opponents.    As with such writers as John Buchan, tales of the Empire's military struggles across the globe were very popular among British youth.  That seems to be a traditional subject at the time,  as both the Boer and Crimean wars generated their own exciting literary output;  this new war, being called "the war to end all wars" did so on a grand scale, and would continue to inspire both prose and film for decades to come. 

Without a doubt Mundy's most famous and popular book,  it was first filmed in 1929 as The Black Watch,  starring Victor McLaglen and Myrna Loy (and, apparently, it had uncredited early parts for John Wayne and Randolph Scott).  It was directed by John Ford,  and though a relatively early work (he already had dozens of movies under his belt by this time),  it has all of the taut drama and action that make his stuff worth seeking out.  Initially released as a silent,  it was a talkie,  and thankfully so;  there are so many wonderful scenes that really benefit from the many regional accents in the story.  McLaglen really shines in this one, and the bravura performance that he would later bring to Gunga Din shows it's roots very clearly here.   The Talbot Mundy animus rings throughout.

Tyrone Power is the lead in the later (and greater) version of the story, appropriately titled King of the Khyber Rifles.  Though Power was on the final stretch of his career when this was released in 1953,  his vigour and intensity had diminished not even a tiny bit.  His adventure movies of this period are some of his most interesting and nuanced.  Here,  as the serious-minded (one could even say stern), Athelstan King,  Power burns like a wildfire.

Now, for lovers of the book,  it would be a mistake to come to the film thinking that they're the same animal.  Though they share some of the same cosmetic features,  the film has been altered to a pretty large degree.  It has been transformed into the film version,  which is fine,  and I believe the changes make it more suitable for the simpler needs of the cinematic experience,  where visuals and greatly delivered dialogue oftentimes do the work of a novel's detail and complexity of plot.  Apropos of my earlier comment, the film is a bit more Rudyard Kipling to the book's H. Rider Haggard,  which,  in this case,  is a good thing.

Power's King is a half-caste;  his father was English,  and his mother was an Afghan Muslim.  Thus, he speaks the Pashto language of the Afghan tribal people,  and he is friendly to them...so long as they are subordinate to British rule.  King, after all, is the Queen's man.

The villain of the story (though ENTIRELY different from the novel),  is the "fanatical"  tribal bandit Kurram Khan,  who,  along with the Islamic Mullahs in the mountain areas, is fomenting rebellion in the people of the hills...by any brutal means necessary.  He is portrayed here by the brilliant Guy Rolfe,  who, it seems,  played more villains than anything else, by far!  In fact,  in the same year as King of the Khyber Rifles,  he played the baddie in another orientalist fantasy,  The Veils of Baghdad (as the evil Kasseim),  as well as Prince John in Ivanhoe, the year before!  It goes without saying that his villain's soliloquies are maniacally well-practiced and insidious.  He's very much the Osama Bin Laden of the piece,  and much like that real Mujahid,  his martial excesses are telegraphed to the audience in the form of a goggle-eyed,  power-mad (hehehe),  inhuman monster...with no normal human reason for opposing the Empire.

I was very impressed by the detail of the film,  and by the nods to local colour and detail.  The Pashto language, like Dari,  the other most common language in Afghanistan,  is  somewhat similar to the Farsi language spoken in Iran.  I understand a good deal of Farsi, as well as urdu and Arabic,  and it seems to me that the dialogue of the tribal characters in the film was appropriate,  if not entirely correct.  I also noticed a few regional colloquialisms used, which were gratifying;  King says of a defector from Kurram Khan's ranks as wanting to "eat British salt",  meaning that he wished to earn his sustenance in the service of the Empire...a folk expression heard as far away as the Punjab.

I was also impressed by the philosophical challenges to imperialism throughout the movie.  Athelstan King, as the son of a Muslim woman,  is treated quite poorly by the political infrastructure and by it's agents.  He's denied invitations to officers' parties, and even loses a roommate when a fellow officer learns of his racial (and possibly spiritual) mix.   The positive portrayals of Muslims in this film are a pleasant surprise, in spite of some stereotyping,  as well as the complexities of the local political perspective.  Not to drag contemporary politics into a simple movie review,  but the moral problems raised by this simple adventure story are very timely to the issues that the United states and Britain still face in that part of the world.  It shows how the presence of a foreign element, determined to change and control an area, can create increasingly more hostile insurrections and challenges to that outsider influence.

Still,  King of the Khyber Rifles is very much,  in the end,  a tale of the Empire; it stands firmly in the tradition of films like the afore-mentioned Gunga Din, Oliver Reed's The Brigand of Kandahar (1965), Rock Hudson's Bengal Brigade (1954), Gary Cooper's Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Raymond Massey in The Drum (1938), and of course, Errol Flynn's 1950 classic,  Kim.   Like the western film, which shares many of the same sociopolitical issues,  we manage to set aside our problems with the reality of the thing,  and get into some great action well told!

The director of this amazing picture is the somewhat ironically-named Henry King.  King was an amazing critter in his own right, having over a hundred acting roles under his belt from the early days of film, as well as a long and prolific career as a director.  Besides King of the Khyber Rifles,  King directed Tyrone Power in such amazing movies as The Untamed (1955),  Prince of Foxes (1949),  The Black Swan (1942),  and  The Sun Also Rises (1957),  as well as such great actors as Errol Flynn, Eva Gardner, Spencer Tracy,  Gordon MacRae, Cameron Mitchell, and (in my opinion) most effectively with Gregory Peck, who did many of his best films with King.

Honestly,  with the possible exception of Errol Flynn,  I can't think of a more well-rounded actor for action pictures of his era than Power;  his gravitas, masculinity and charm are possessing,  and that leadership vibe, so often lost to today's actors, are his in spades.  His characters are people that one would follow "once more, unto the breach",  and his King of the Khyber Rifles is no less so.  It's a Powerhouse film that you shouldn't live without!

Also, for them that are interested both in the regions of India and Pakistan as well as in detective fiction,  I have an article about the various home-grown sleuths from various South Asian countries.  You can read it HERE.