ALL ABOUT EVE

 

My official DVD of All About Eve (© Joseph L. Mankiewicz/20^th Century Fox – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My movie watch on 7 November 2022 was very different from my more typical sci fi/fantasy-themed choices) but is a film that I'd wanted to see for a long while). Namely, the theatre & treachery cinematic classic, All About Eve.

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based upon a 1946 short story by Mary Orr entitled 'The Wisdom of Eve', and released in 1950 by 20^th Century Fox, All About Eve stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, an ageing but still-lauded Broadway theatre actress who befriends a besotted young fan, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). However, saccharine-sweet, Uriah Heepishly humble Eve swiftly insinuates herself into Margo's life in what is eventually revealed to be a determined, cold-blooded attempt to supplant her as a major Broadway – and Hollywood – star.

Eve even attempts to steal first Margo's director fiancé Bill (Gary Merrill), and then, when that fails, playwright husband Lloyd (Hugh Marlowe) of Margo's best friend Karen (Celeste Holm in excellent form), not because Eve loves either of them but because she coldly views them as stepping stones in her indefatigable bid for stardom.

Only two people see through evil Eve's charade – Margo's hard-bitten maid Birdie (Thelma Ritter) and the sardonic but highly intelligent theatre critic Addison DeWitt (played with sinister suavity by George Sanders), and only in his case because he is just as amoral as Eve is! In other words, it takes one to know one!

Marilyn Monroe also appears in a small early role for her, playing a bubbly but hilariously talentless wannabe actress named Claudia Caswell. Her character's sole purpose in this movie is simply to provide some comic relief as a contrast to Eve's shadowy shenanigans, but Marilyn still succeeds effortlessly in commanding the entire screen whenever she appears, even eclipsing her eminent company of long-established stars – no mean feat! Marilyn is every inch a superstar in waiting, and, as we all know, she did not have to wait very long before she did indeed became one.

All About Eve is a fascinating film, its more than 2 hours of running time flitting by in no time at all, as the devious depths of Eve's machinations and subterfuges gradually reveal themselves, but happily DeWitt has no small degree of  experience himself in that deceiving department…

Best of all, and well worth the wait, is a truly wonderful twist right at the end of the movie, which Eve is not even aware of – but the movie's audience is, and no doubt takes great joy (schadenfreude, even) from it, as I did! Indeed, it provides the perfect, entirely apt future comeuppance for Eve – yielding a fitting finale to an absolutely awesome movie.

No wonder All About Eve was nominated for a record-breaking 14 Academy Awards, winning 6 of them, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who also won Best Screenplay for it), and Best Supporting Actor (a greatly-deserving Sanders). Fantastic!!

Incidentally, although Margo Channing will always be one of Bette Davis's most famous roles, she was far from being first choice for the part. Others who were considered but subsequently dismissed or dismissed it themselves included the likes of Susan Hayward, Marlene Dietrich, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine, Katharine Hepburn, Gertrude Lawrence, Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead, Ginger Rogers, Hedy Lamarr, Gloria Swanson, Joan Bennett, Greer Garson, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Loretta Young, Rosalind Russell, and Barbara Stanwyck. Claudette Colbert finally won the part, but when she had to pull out shortly afterwards due to an injury, Davis was drafted in and the character was duly transformed into a more hard-bitten version.

Similarly, Anne Bancroft was ultimately drafted in as Eve after original choice Jeanne Crain became pregnant and withdrew. Others who had been considered for this role included Ann Blyth, Elizabeth Taylor, Olivia de Havilland, June Allyson, and Donna Reed. As for the role of Addison DeWitt, won by George Sanders, other thespian luminaries who had been considered included Vincent Price, José Ferrer, Claude Rains, Adolphe Menjou, Charles Laughton, and Basil Rathbone. And ZsaZsa Gabor, married to Sanders at that time, was considered for the role ultimately given to Marilyn, and was so jealous that Sanders and Marilyn were working closely together on-screen that she kept turning up to the studo to ensure that everything remained completely above board!

Remarkably, all four lead actresses (Davis, Baxter, Holm, and Ritter) were nominated for an Academy Award for their respective roles, but none won one, whereas Sanders did for his role, but it was his only Oscar win. Also of note: Davis and Gary Merrill, who played her on-screen fiancé Bill, married in real life, shortly after the movie was completed, and adopted a baby girl, whom they christened Margot!

In 1970, a stage musical version of All About Eve appeared on Broadway, entitled Applause. A Tony Award-winning production, it originally starred Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing, but when she later left the show, she was replaced in this role by none other than – Anne Bancroft!

If you'd like to witness at first hand the rollicking rollercoaster of a classic that is All About Eve, be sure to click here to view an official trailer for it on YouTube – and also, in the immortal words of Margo: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!"

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

THE FABULOUS JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH (aka WHERE TIME BEGAN)

 

Publicity poster for The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth (aka Where Time Began) (© Juan Piquer Simón/Jacinto Santos Parrás – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

There have been numerous big-screen adaptations of Jules Verne's famous 1864 sci fi novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth, of which probably the two most famous examples, both of which share the novel's title, are the first one, released in 1959 and starring James Mason, and the most recent one, released in 2008 and starring Brendan Fraser, both of which I've seen, together with a 1967 animated TV series that introduced me to this story as a child.

During the evening of 5 November 2022, however, while fireworks were exploding all around outside on a cold wet Bonfire Night here in the UK, I chose to stay warm and comfortable inside instead, and finally watched a third movie version of this novel –  one that I'd long known about but had never previously seen.

Directed as well as co-written by Juan Piquer Simón, and released in 1977 by Jacinto Santos Parrás, the movie in question is an English-language Spanish production entitled somewhat loquaciously in the UK as The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and much more succinctly in the USA as Where Time Began. Oddly, it was never shown in British cinemas, but has been screened on various UK TV channels, including very recently on the retro channel Talking Pictures, and has been made available on video and DVD.

Set in 1898, this movie stars veteran British actor Kenneth More in the role of the geologist Prof. Otto Lidenbrock (or Lindenbrock – its pronunciation changes through the film) who purchases from a very strange stranger (who may have been a subsequently-encountered character named Olsen but in disguise – see later) an obscure book containing a hidden coded map. This cryptic chart reveals a secret route down through an Icelandic dormant volcano into the very bowels of the Earth – a route that had allegedly been taken by mysterious explorer Arne Saknussemm, and which revealed our planet's core to be hollow.

Determined to test whether Saknussemm's route is genuine, and accompanied in this perilous journey by niece Glauben (a dubbed Ivonne Sentis), her soldier fiancé Axel (a dubbed Pep Munné) and strongman Icelandic shepherd Hans (Frank Braña), Lidenbrock does indeed reach the centre of the Earth (albeit more by luck than judgement, the team's members tumbling, stumbling, bumbling, and blundering their way ever downward through crepuscular caverns and treacherous tunnels in a thoroughly inept, imbecilic manner!). Moreover, en route he and his party encounter a lone, highly-secretive fellow explorer/scientist named Olsen (Jack Taylor), who has found his own way there, carrying a strange box whose contents are never revealed but which he uses to conduct unexplained experiments.

Among the multitude of marvels that this expeditionary team confront within the Hollow Earth are some living dinosaurs and sea monsters (but don't expect Harryhausen quality), a huge King Kong lookalike, a congregation of thankfully exceedingly slow-footed carnivorous giant tortoises, a veritable forest of gargantuan mushrooms with deadly spores, all manner of extreme weather conditions, and a truly bizarre scene in which some of the team members including Olsen enter a cave and find inside it a vast luminously-lit futuristic laboratory-cum-city populated by scientists who apparently are all clones of Olsen (but which the team do not investigate or even mention to Lidenbrock, who hasn't accompanied them inside the cave).

Most spectacular of all, however, is a vast subterranean freshwater ocean (whose water has healing properties) ensconced within an inner world lit not by a sun but by an ionising meteorological phenomenon that Lidenbrock compares to the aurora borealis but on an immense scale. Also worth mentioning is the odd occurrence of a huge monster arising out of a vast cloud of vapour that none of the expedition sees or interacts with, which begs the question of why it was included in the movie at all!

In short, there is plenty here to entertain and enjoy, which is why it is such a pity that the movie was for me entirely spoilt by the obnoxious nature of most of the characters. The ostensibly brave soldier Axel soon proves to be a snivelling, whining coward, Hans is taciturn to the point of being virtually mute, Glauben has a troublesome tendency to become simultaneously obstinate and hysterical, and the aloof Olsen is maddeningly mysterious which would be ok if a reason for this was ultimately revealed but none ever is.

As for Lidenbrock – a more pompous, self-opinionated, dogmatic know-it-all would be difficult to find, with the stark fact that several of his glaring errors of judgement cause all manner of ills for his team having not the slightest effect upon his supreme but unwarranted confidence in his own perceived infallibility.

Presented with a gallery of unprepossessing characters like these, it is very difficult even to warm to, let alone root for, any of them. Yet doing so should be a major part of any movie's viewer experience.

Ah well, The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth was still an intriguing albeit not entirely explicable watch – why the futuristic subterranean laboratory, what was the nature of Olsen's activities, why at the end of the movie (set a few years after the team had arrived safely back above-ground) did he turn up in disguise and much older than previously when none of the other characters had aged? There are hints that Olsen may actually be a time-traveller, but this is never confirmed. All very odd and all remaining unexplained – disappointing.

Nevertheless, as discussed above, this sci fi movie is certainly not without a fair few memorable moments to savour along the way. So if you'd like a tumultuous taster of what to expect from The Fabulous Journey to the Centre of the Earth, be sure to click here to watch a veritably volcanic official trailer for it on YouTube. Or click here to view the entire movie free of charge there.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

FIRE SERPENTS, SAND SERPENTS, AND A SERPENT KING – A TRIO OF CRYPTO-CREATURE FEATURES UNCOILING ON-SCREEN!

 

Publicity posters for Fire Serpent, Sand Serpents, and Basilisk: The Serpent King (© John Terlesky/CineTel Films/Kandu Entertainment/Outrage Productions/Premiere Bobine/S.V. Scary Films/Sci-Fi Channel/Lionsgate Home Entertainment // Jeff Renfroe/Media Pro Pictures/Muse Entertainment/SyFy/RHI Entertainment // Stephen Furst/BUFO/Curmudgeon Films/Sci Fi Pictures – all three posters reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

It's always a pleasure to watch creature features in which the monsters in question are far removed from the usual cinematic stereotypes (e.g. ferocious man-beasts, werewolves, sea monsters, gargantuan insects, prehistoric survivors), and the three examples appearing in the trio of movies reviewed here are definitely out of the ordinary, that's for sure! They display a vermiform similarity, but their respective origins could not be more dissimilar – cast down to Earth from the scorching surface of the sun, rudely awoken from deep subterranean desert dreaming, and resurrected from a very lengthy petrified past.

 

 

A second publicity poster for Fire Serpent (© John Terlesky/CineTel Films/Kandu Entertainment/Outrage Productions/Premiere Bobine/S.V. Scary Films/Sci-Fi Channel/Lionsgate Home Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

FIRE SERPENT

My movie watch on 25 August 2022 was a highly original sci fi/monster movie entitled Fire Serpent.

Directed by John Terlesky, created by celebrated Star Trek actor William Shatner, and originally screened in 2007 by the Sci-Fi Channel, Fire Serpent has as its central concept the notion that every so often throughout history, one of these eponymous fire-embodied serpentine entities is shot forth via solar flares from the sun's scorching surface down to Earth, where it commits all manner of mayhem, inducing large-scale blazes, forest fires, etc in its search for fuel to revitalise it.

In so doing, this ophidian flame-spreader will even take over humans in its bid to destroy anyone who stands in its path before incinerating them internally yet without leaving a mark on them externally. Needless to say, spontaneous human combustion instantly comes to mind here, but sadly – and strangely – this extraordinary yet still-unexplained fiery phenomenon is neither mentioned by name nor incorporated in any way within the movie.

The existence of fire serpents is known to the US government but is kept a closely-guarded secret until maverick firefighter Dutch Fallon (played by Randolph Mantooth), whose girlfriend was killed by one of these flying furnaces, decides to devise a means of destroying them. This does not go down well with one mysterious government agent in particular, however, a religious fanatic and covert arsonist named Cooke (Robert Beltran) who believes that they are fiery angels sent by God to cleanse the world by fire in order to renew it.

Can Dutch and a couple of semi-believing associates put a stop both to the fire serpents and to the fire-preaching maniac Cooke who seeks to harness them in his mad bid for catastrophic global conflagration?

The CGI fire serpents are well executed, and, as I say, this movie's theme is unusual enough to keep even a hardened seen-it-all creature feature fan like me interested and entertained.

If you'd care to gaze from the flame-retardant safety of your sofa at the coruscating creatures featured in this incandescent movie, be sure to click here to watch an official Fire Serpent trailer on YouTube that won't leave you feeling hot under the collar!

 

 

Close-up of a giant sand serpent in Sand Serpents (© Jeff Renfroe/Media Pro Pictures/Muse Entertainment/Syfy/RHI Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

SAND SERPENTS

On 29 June 2022, my movie watch was the crypto-themed Canadian film Sand Serpents.

Directed by Jeff Renfroe, and released on the Syfy Channel in 2009, Sand Serpents is definitely one of the better entries in the long-running made-for-TV 'Maneater' series of sci fi/horror creature features produced by RHI Entertainment for Syfy and released from 2007 onwards.

Think Tremors, but set in Afghanistan (although filmed in Romania), Sand Serpents centres upon a small US special forces military squad led by Lieutenant Richard Stanley (played by Jason Gedrick) and seeking to elude the Taliban, but also facing an even deadlier and far more unexpected foe – 60-ft-long predatory worms disturbed from their subterranean realm by a massive explosion and now hunting down and devouring or destroying anything that betrays its presence to them via loud sounds or other vibrations. Not even helicopters flying overhead are safe from these voracious vermiforms that rear up into the sky and swallow the whirlybirds in a single gulp. Gulp!

The squad's only hope is to make its way through a series of underground tunnels to a location where yet another helicopter will attempt to rescue them, but the worms seem intent upon picking them off, one by one... Make sure that you watch this movie right to the very end, because the closing scene contains a very dramatic and unexpected albeit somewhat unnecessary twist.

For a low-budget movie, its CGI mega-worms are excellent, with Sand Serpents a worthy homage to the Tremors franchise, and an equally worthy addition to my crypto-cinema collection.

Moreover, if what I've read in various reviews of it elsewhere is true, this movie's portrayal of the US military in action in Afghanistan is a decent, relatively accurate representation (though apparently there are various authenticity issues concerning the soldiers' outfits and insignia – as someone not well-informed on military matters, however, I couldn't say).

For a spectacular taster of what to expect down deep in the desert where the giant sand serpents dwell, be sure to click here to view a trailer of sand serpent excerpts from this movie on YouTube.

 

 

A French publicity poster for Basilisk: The Serpent King (© Stephen Furst/BUFO/Curmudgeon Films/Sci Fi Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

BASILISK: THE SERPENT KING

Viewed on the UK's Horror [now renamed Legend] TV Channel, my movie watch for 18 June 2022 was the creature feature Basilisk: The Serpent King.

Directed by Stephen Furst, filmed in Bulgaria, and released in 2006 on the Sci Fi Channel, Basilisk: The Serpent King opens with a modern-day discovery in the Middle East of what appear on first sight to be a series of stone statues of soldiers dating back two millennia. These are brought back to the States by the archaeological team that has discovered them, led by Dr Harrison 'Harry' McColl (played by Jeremy London), together with their most extraordinary find there – namely, what again seems to be a stone statue, but this time of an enormous serpentine dragon, plus a very ornate serpent-ornamented sceptre containing a beautiful precious stone.

However, it's not long before the terrifying truth emerges – these 'statues' are actually petrified humans. Moreover, when the giant serpentine dragon 'statue' is put on display in the Colorado university museum sponsoring Harry's archaeological dig, and sensationally comes to life during a major reception there for the museum's wealthy patrons via an unexpected photo-reaction involving the sceptre and a solar eclipse, it turns out to be a basilisk, which spits forth a deadly white liquid that when activated by its incandescent gaze promptly turns to stone a fair few of its awe-struck audience. Not only that, it's pregnant! (Not so much a Serpent King as a Serpent Queen, therefore, or are there aspects of basilisk reproduction that I have yet to learn about??)

Anyway, much mayhem results, especially when the basilisk lays waste to a multi-story indoor shopping centre (whose property & contents insurance is unlikely to cover wholesale destruction caused by a mythical mega-monster!), and the U.S. army is brought into play in a desperate bid to nullify this Medusa-mouthed Middle Eastern mall-wrecker.

Meanwhile, Harry and friends (one of whom, Carlton, is played by director Furst) no less desperately attempt to regain possession of the sceptre that has been stolen by a wily and wealthy albeit decidedly wacky villainess named Hannah (Yancy Butler). She plans to use it to uncover a priceless cache of treasure, uncaring that it also happens to be the only object in existence that can counter the basilisk.

Notwithstanding its ostensibly incongruous, spindly little legs (even though some traditional basilisk depictions do indeed supply it with limbs), the CGI basilisk is very acceptable, and whereas there is an emphasis upon wisecracks and goofy characters, this monster movie still boasts its fair share of thrills along the way too. Basilisk: The Serpent King was a film hitherto unknown to me but one that I certainly enjoyed, and also recorded in order to add it to the crypto-themed section of my movie collection, as I have so far been unable to locate it on DVD.

Incidentally, for the benefit of zoomythology zealots, I must point out two intrinsic discrepancies between this movie's basilisk and traditional ones. Firstly: although the basilisk is indeed referred to in classical legends as the king of the serpents, it is usually represented as being quite small, certainly nothing remotely as sizeable as this film's gargantuan representative. Secondly: and according once again to legends, should a basilisk direct its gaze or its venom upon anyone (or any other living thing), the latter is instantly killed, not turned to stone – that more specialised slaying ability is instead reserved for the trio of  gorgons in Greek mythology.

Nevertheless, here and here, to petrify you, but, happily, not in a gorgonesque manner, are a couple of Basilisk: The Serpent King clips on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

A close encounter of the basilisk variety in Basilisk: The Serpent King(© Stephen Furst/BUFO/Curmudgeon Films/Sci Fi Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)