FROM A MILLIONAIRESS AND A MILLION POUND NOTE TO A GOOD LOOKIN' BAKSHI MOVIE AND MORE!

 

My DVDs and video of some of the movies mini-reviewed by me here (photograph © Dr Karl Shuker – see photos of individual DVDs etc below for their films' respective credits)

Time for another collection of mini-reviews of movies watched by me of late – and just for a change none of them is a sci fi, fantasy, or musical movie (but there is an animated one!).

 

 

Publicity photograph for Cold Comfort Farm (© John Schlesinger/Thames Television/BBC – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

COLD COMFORT FARM

On 3 March 2024, I thoroughly enjoyed the eponymous British film version of the satirical Stella Gibbons novel Cold Comfort Farm, published in 1932. Directed by John Schlesinger, produced by Thames Television and the BBC, and released in 1995, it stars Kate Beckinsale as city-sophisticated but newly-orphaned young lady Flora Poste, who accepts an invitation to spend some time with her eccentric rural relatives the Starkadders on their ramshackle homestead Cold Comfort Farm, which is supposedly overshadowed by a family curse. And as if that were not off-putting enough, it is also ruled with a fist of iron by Great-Aunt Ada Doom (Sheila Burrell), who has lived a Miss Havishamesque existence cocooned inside her bedroom there for countless years after seeing "something nasty in the woodshed" when a child. It's up to prissy but prescient Flora to drag the Starkadders out of their crazy, gloom, doom (and Doom!)-laden existence into the modern era and enable them to fulfil their various long-harboured but hitherto-repressed ambitions. Packed with famous names, including Joanna Lumley (as Flora's ditzy high-society friend Mary Smiling), Eileen Atkins (dread-filled and dreadful Starkadder matriarch Judith), Rufus Sewell (lusty youngest Starkadder brother Seth), Ivan Kaye (diligent middle Starkadder brother Reuben), Ian McKellen (hellfire-preaching eldest Starkadder brother Amos), Stephen Fry (irritating upper-class twit Mybug), Miriam Margolyes (the Starkadders' helper Mrs Beetle), and Freddie Jones (the delightfully-named Adam Lambsbreath), this is a thoroughly delightful and very amusing movie watch that is guaranteed to cheer and charm even the most downbeat of viewers. Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.

 

 

My official DVD of D.O.A. (© Rudolph Maté/Harry Popkin Productions/Cardinal Pictures/United Artists – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

D.O.A.

My movie watch on 3 November 2023 was a double-bill of 1950s b/w films, but that's where their similarities end. One of them was the sci fi comedy movie The Twonky, which I've already reviewed here. The other was the original film version of D.O.A. (its title's initials standing for Dead On Arrival). Directed by Rudolph Maté, and released in 1950 by United Artists, D.O.A. is a film noir mystery/thriller in which LA-based accountant and notary Frank Bigelow (played by Edmund O'Brien) is surreptitiously poisoned while visiting San Francisco. Moreover, the poison is lethal as there is no known antidote for it and will therefore kill him in a week, possibly less. So although Bigelow is presently still alive, he is already functionally murdered. Consequently, he decides to spend his final week alive tracking down his unknown killer and uncovering the cryptic reason why the latter has visited upon him this death sentence. With a compelling plot, full of twists and turns as well as a massive ongoing red herring, D.O.A. duly engaged my interest and attention throughout its 84 minutes running time. I own it on DVD, but please click here if you'd like to watch this entire movie free of charge on YouTube.

 

 

Publicity poster for Help! (© Richard Lester/Walter Shenson Films/Subafilms/United Artists – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

HELP!

My movie watch on 2 July 2024 was Help! – the 'classic' Beatles movie that I'd never previously viewed but had lately purchased in video format. Directed by Richard Lester, and released in 1965 by United Artists, it's all about a Kali-worshipping death cult heavily into human sacrifice who need a precious ring currently (and aptly) being worn by Ringo to place on the finger of their next victim – who may well be Ringo himself if he can't remove the tenaciously-attached item of jewellery from his finger! All manner of madcap chases and pursuits duly ensue, as the ring is being sought not only by the cult's maniacal head priest Clang (played by Leo McKern) but also by megalomaniacal mad scientist (is there any other sort??) Professor Foot (Victor Spinetti) and his clot of a cohort Algernon (Roy Kinnear). And yes, this movie is indeed every bit as barmy as it sounds, albeit imho not necessarily in a good way, filled as it is with disjointed nonsense and deadpan humour that was more dead and panned than humorous. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this movie, I feel, is that someone somewhere somehow felt that it was a good idea at the time. They clearly needed Help! The Beatles choosing to become musicians rather than actors was definitely music's gain – and acting's too! Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.

 

 

My official big-box video of Hey Good Lookin' (© Ralph Bakshi/Bakshi Productions/Warner Bros – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

HEY GOOD LOOKIN'

After rewatching the live-action/animation mash-up movie Cool World a few days earlier (click here for my full review of that movie), on 6 July 2024 I rewatched another film conceived and directed by Ralphi Bakshi, this time the fully-animated flick Hey Good Lookin', released in 1982 by Warner Bros after an earlier 1970s version that had been a previous attempt by Bakshi to create a live-action/animation mash-up movie had remained (and still remains) unreleased (but click here to view a very rare promo for it, showing how the four principal animated characters interacted with the live-action world that they inhabited in this earlier version). Set mostly in early 1950s Brooklyn, NYC, its central characters are Vinnie, the cool but cowardly Fonzie-lookalike leader of a greaser gang named The Stompers, and his aptly-named psychotic sidekick Crazy, and culminates in a violent rumble between the Stompers and rival gang the Chaplains, earning the movie an 18 certificate. It contains very slick animation throughout, and is accompanied by some excellent foot-tapping rock'n'roll songs (including the title number), but I found none of the characters in it to be even remotely likeable. I had previously watched this movie only once, about 30 years previously, soon after buying it as a big-box VHS video (pictured here), and which is what I watched again five months ago in July (though I do now own it on DVD too), and experienced a mystifying 'false memory' moment. I would have sworn that during the rumble, Vinnie turns ugly and stabs someone to death, yet watching it this second time, on the same video that I'd watched it on before, no such event takes place. On the contrary, Vinnie cowers behind a car and leaves his gang to do all the fighting. Very curious indeed – a veritable Mandela Effect instance, perhaps (click here for details of what may be another animated film-related Mandela Effect experience of mine, and here for a very famous non-animated movie example of this phenomenon), or just a bad memory on my part? You decide! Please click here to watch an official trailer for this movie on YouTube.

 

 

My complementary promo full-length movie DVD of The Millionairess given by London's Daily Express newspaper – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE MILLIONAIRESS

My movie watch on 9 July 2024 was the British rom-com film The Millionairess. Directed by Anthony Asquith, inspired by the eponymous play by George Bernard Shaw, and released in 1960 by 20^th Century Fox, it stars Italian screen goddess Sophia Loren (Ava Gardner had been Fox's first choice) as Epifania Pererge, the egocentric wealth-obsessed richest woman in the world, and iconic British comic actor Peter Sellers as Dr Ahmed el Kabir, the wealth-indifferent selfless Indian doctor whom she is determined to ensnare as her husband. Several other famous British thespians appeared in supporting roles, such as Alastair Sim, Alfie Bass, Miriam Karlin, Dennis Price, and Graham Stark. Even so, I have to confess that I found it to be nowhere near as funny as I'd been led to believe, probably due to the highly unpleasant, brattish nature of Loren's character, making it very difficult to warm to her. Earlier plans to film Shaw's play with Katharine Hepburn and Alec Guinness in the leading roles never came to fruition. Worth noting, incidentally, is that contrary to numerous claims, the hit Loren/Sellers song 'Goodness Gracious Me' (click here to listen to it on YouTube with scenes from the movie), in which they feature as their characters from this movie (and which contains dialogue from one particular scene in it in which he is medically examining her), never actually appears in the film. It was meant to, but the producers changed their minds about including it, and it was instead released separately, as a means of publicising the film, which it did very effectively as this song went on to become a smash hit in the UK music singles chart. Please click here if you would like to watch this entire movie free of charge on YouTube.

 

 

My official DVD of The Million Pound Note (© Ronald Neame/J. Arthur Rank Organisation/Group Film Productions/General Film Distributors – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE MILLION POUND NOTE

On 10 July 2024, my movie watch was, like The Millionairess that I viewed on the previous evening (see mini-review above), a classic but nowadays not so famous British comedy film – The Million Pound Note (aka Man With A Million), which was directed by Ronald Neame, released in 1954 by General Film Distributors, and based upon a Mark Twain story. Set in the late 1800s, it stars Gregory Peck as Henry Adams, a penniless jobless American stranded in London who is presented by two wealthy gamblers with a genuine one million pound banknote, to see whether he can last a month without spending any of it yet still prosper simply by the respectability that possessing it brings to him, or whether he will need to spend at least some of it in order to survive. Henry finds the former prospect to be the one that works very well for him, at least to begin with, but matters become ever more complex, farcical, and hilarious as the month progresses. A host of famous British stars feature in this film, not least of whom are Joyce Grenfell, Wildfrid Hyde-White, Bryan Forbes, Laurence Naismith, Joan Hickson, and Hugh Griffith. Sumptuous decor, sparkling dialogue, and with Joyce Grenfell as a delightfully dotty duchess, how could any such movie possibly go wrong? And it doesn't – it's a total joy throughout. I vaguely remember watching this movie just once before, at least 50 years ago in b/w on TV when I was a teenager, but I had scarcely remembered it at all except for its title, so it was like watching a totally new film when I played my recently-purchased DVD of it. Please click here to watch this movie in its entirety free of charge on YouTube.

Finally: 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.

 

Screen-shot from the original unreleased 1970s live-action/animation mash-up version of Hey Good Lookin' (© Ralph Bakshi/Bakshi Productions/Warner Bros – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

COOL WORLD

 

My official ex-rental big box VHS video of Cool World (© Ralph Bakshi/Bakshi Animation/Paramount Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Ever since I first saw the Disney classics Mary Poppins at the cinema in the mid-1960s and Bedknobs and Broomsticks there in the early 1970s (not to mention in later years their wonderful Latin American-flavoured Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros), I have always been a big fan of live-action/animation mash-up fantasy movies. Among my all-time favourite examples from this genre (and which I own both as a DVD and as an ex-rental big box VHS video), however, is one that I consider to be vastly under-rated (especially by film critics) – Cool World, which I rewatched earlier today.

Directed by legendary American animator/painter Ralph Bakshi, and released in 1992 by Paramount Pictures, Cool World opens in Las Vegas during 1945, when American WW2 army soldier Frank Harris (played by Brad Pitt), newly returned home after being demobbed, takes his mother for a ride on his brand-new motorbike, but tragically they are soon involved in a horrific motoring accident caused by a drunk automobile driver in which Frank's mother is killed – and although Frank survives, he finds himself abruptly and mystifyingly jettisoned from our live-action world into a strange and often bizarre animated alternate dimension known as the Cool World, which is populated entirely by living cartoon characters called doodles – except for a single exception, that is.

For although he now inhabits an animated world and is surrounded on all sides by doodles, Frank resolutely remains a live-action human, or noid. Neither able nor interested anyway (after having lost his mother) in returning to his own live-action world, Frank reconciles himself to a whole new life here in the Cool World, where he becomes a tough, hard-nosed, film noiresque detective working with the local doodle police force, and assigned as his law-enforcing sidekick a chatty but friendly giant spider doodle named Nails (voiced by Charlie Adler).

Over four decades pass by, it is now 1992, but Frank remains the same age as he was on that fateful, deeply traumatic day in 195 when he entered the Cool World. Moreover, he also remains the only noid in the Cool World, but he has gained a doodle girlfriend named Lonette (voiced by Candi Milo) Unfortunately for them, however, their relationship has to remain strictly platonic – for whereas if a noid and a doodle have sex the doodle can then become a noid, there is also a considerable risk that the Cool World and the live-action world will entangle with one another, becoming unstable and experiencing devastating consequences.

Back in our live-action world, meanwhile, an underground comic-book cartoonist named Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) is about to be released from prison after serving 10 years for murdering a man who had slept with his wife. During his sentence, Jack had kept himself occupied by drawing what had gone on to become a new bestselling comic book series that he had named Cool World, and which had appeared to him in dreams and visions.

Jack did not realise, however, that the animated world he'd been drawing actually existed, and had done so long before he'd first dreamed of it. Moreover, he had no idea that one particular character he thought was his own creation already existed for real in the real Cool World – a certain bold and buxom blonde aptly named Holli Would. For Holli not only could but also most assuredly would do whatever it took to achieve her ultimate goal – to become a noid, a live-action human.

And indeed, it was Holli who had sent Jack his dreams and visions of the Cool World. For what better way to achieve her goal, regardless of the dangerous risks that such a dramatic transformation may entail for the two worlds, than to seduce a naïve noid who mistakenly thought that he'd created her – poor unsuspecting Jack! (She had already tried to seduce Frank, but he had always rebuffed her amorous advances.)

So Holli duly lures Jack into the Cool World where, like a latter-day Pygmalion, and in spite of being confronted by Frank and warned in no uncertain terms of the possible dire consequences of noid-doodle intimacy, Jack falls headlong for headstrong Holli, who swiftly beguiles the carnal cartoonist into making out – and thereby making her a noid!

Thereafter, events take a number of very tumultuous turns, with a now thoroughly unstable Holli in every sense, constantly flickering back and forth from noid to doodle to noid again, determined to ensure that she remains a noid permanently – by harnessing the magical transformative potency of the Spike of Power.

Years earlier, this mystical artifact serving as a portal between the two worlds had been brought into the live-action world by a doodle named Dr Vincent Whiskers, aka Vegas Vinnie, who had utilized it to cross over from the Cool World into Las Vegas, whereupon he had purchased the Union Plaza Hotel there in the guise of Vegas Vinnie for the express purpose of concealing the Spike within the hotel's enormous neon name-sign on its roof's tower, where amidst all the glitz and glamour of Vegas those who may wish to utilize the Spike's power for evil or dangerous purposes would never find it. (Moreover, it later transpires that it was one of Dr Whiskers's early experiments with the Spike in the Cool World that had unexpectedly opened a portal into the live-action world and had sucked Frank through it into the Cool World straight after the motoring accident.)

Consequently, Holli launches a frenzied attempt to clamber up the tower to reach the Spike and release its power, with Jack and Frank begrudgingly joining forces in a valiant bid to stop her, but Holli pushes Frank off the tower, causing him to plummet to his apparent death far below. At the tower's summit, Holli finally seizes the Spike, but as soon as she does so a horde of monstrous doodles are instantly released from the Cool World, pouring forth into Vegas, whose surroundings and citizens in close proximity to the Spike begin morphing and warping, while Jack unfathomably transforms into a super-hero doodle!

Against this backdrop of apocalyptic bedlam, but courtesy of his ultra-powerful doodle alter ego, Jack nevertheless succeeds in capturing Holli and hauling her back into the Cool World, together with the Spike of Power, whereupon the monsters invading Vegas promptly disappear, and the city reverts to its normal stable state. But what about Frank – is he really dead?

Luckily for our taciturn hero, at the precise moment when she had pushed him off the tower Holli had flickered back into a doodle, and it just so happens that if a doodle fatally attacks a noid in the live-action world, the noid is not killed but is instead transformed into a living doodle in the Cool World, Consequently, that is precisely what and where Frank is now – a very much alive doodle equivalent of his former live-action self, and back in the Cool World.

So too on both counts is the treacherous Holli, and this time permanently. For although she is still a potentially dangerous doodle, there are no noids present in the Cool World any more for her to attempt to seduce as a means of becoming a noid and escaping again into the live-action world to wreak further havoc. Instead, she is now partnered in the Cool World to Jack in his eminently boastful and incredibly boring doodle super-hero form – a fate so dreadful that one almost feels sorry for her…almost.

In short, with the doodle monsters vanquished in Vegas, and the two worlds saved from mutual destruction, all is live and active again in the live-action world, and all is cool again in the Cool World. Moreover, with Frank now a doodle just like Lonette, there is no longer any barrier to their romance blossoming fully – and in the fullness of time no doubt giving rise to the patter of non-platonic tiny doodle feet…

Cool World is marvelously inventive, brilliantly imaginative, and decidedly surreal, its vibrant, eye-popping visuals (most especially those within the Cool World itself) are as daring as they are dazzling, veritably psychedelic at times, and its countless live-action/animation interactions are well-synced throughout; Kim Basinger and Brad Pitt in particular play their respective dual voiced-doodle/live-action-noid roles of Holli and Frank with great conviction; and the movie soundtrack is full of memorable tracks by the likes of Moby, The Future Sound of London, Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys, and Ministry, as well as a hip background score by Mark Isham, and even a song, 'Real Cool World', written exclusively for it and performed over its end credits by none other than David Bowie.

Consequently, with so much seemingly going for it, I was nothing if not surprised to discover recently that what for me will always remain a hugely enjoyable movie actually bombed at the box office, Cool World making a lifetime gross of only US$14.1 million against a reported budget of US$28 million. Why? What went wrong?

Two principal reasons seem to be indicated here. The first is that as a live-action/animation mash-up movie, Cool World may have followed too closely upon the metaphorical heels of Disney's unequivocal mash-up masterpiece Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which had been released a mere four years earlier in 1988 to universal acclaim, and had stupendously grossed at the box office seven times its US$50 million budget. Any movie from the same genre attempting to follow in the colossal big-screen footsteps of that cinematic blockbuster was almost guaranteed to be found wanting by comparison in the eyes of critics and public audiences alike.

Even so, Cool World may have received a more enthusiastic response from both of those categories of viewers had it not fallen foul of what I personally consider to be a second major reason for its box-office debacle. Just like its principal doodle character Holli, during its progression from concept to completion Cool World transformed – dramatically.

For although not widely realized today outside movie-buff circles, director Bakshi had originally planned Cool World not as the relatively tame PG13-rated film that was ultimately released (and which fatefully ensured, therefore, that it would be compared directly with Who Framed Roger Rabbit) but instead as something very different – an adult-oriented R/18-rated live-action/animation horror movie! In other words, a production much more akin in tone and content to earlier Bakshi movies like the fully-animated Fritz the Cat (1972) and Hey Good Lookin' (1982, which had initially contained some live-action sequences before these were eliminated pre-release in favour of it being another fully-animated feature).

However, even though they did formally accept Bakshi's proposed concept, the studio powers that be at Paramount apparently made it clear soon afterwards that they had very different ideas from Bakshi's with regard to what they wanted the movie to be. This resulted in a number of significant screenplay re-writes and revisions being carried out, none of which accorded with Bakshi's visions for it.

He had originally envisaged for Cool World a decidedly gritty, hard-hitting storyline, focusing upon a mixed-heritage child in the Cool World, with his mother a doodle and his father a noid. During a lengthy period incarcerated in prison, cartoonist noid Jack Deebs had created a series of Cool World comics containing a voluptuous female cartoon character named Debbie Dallas (a play on the title of the infamous 1978 pornographic movie Debbie Does Dallas), and with whom Jack had subsequently had sex after having been transported to the Cool World, resulting in the birth of their doodle/noid infant boy. When the success of his comics made him a star, however, Jack had abandoned doodle Debbie and their hybrid son, who grows up resenting his father so much that when finally an adult he decides to seek Jack out in the live-action world and murder him. Like I say, a much darker plot indeed from the one in the Cool World movie that finally hit the big screen in 1992!

Also, Bakshi wanted Brad Pitt to play Jack (he'd also considered Willem Dafoe), but the powers that be preferred a more established star (Brad was still a relative big-screen newcomer back in the late 1980s when Cool World was being conceived). So they selected Gabriel Byrne instead, resulting in Bakshi specifically creating the character of Frank for Brad to play instead, in order to have him in the movie after all. Bakshi also favoured Drew Barrymore for the role of Debbie (who'd be renamed Holli), but for the same reason as with Brad the studio selected Kim Basinger. And so, frame by frame, plot line by plot line, Cool World evolved and metamorphosed from Bakshi's raw R-rated original version into the toned-down PG13-rated released version.

Much as I love the latter movie, I cannot help but wonder what Bakshi's original Cool World concept would have been like had it been committed to celluloid. Judging from his various earlier mature-audience animated features like the afore-mentioned Fritz the Cat and Hey Good Lookin', both of which I also like very much, I think it highly likely that it would have been spectacular – as well as being a notable cinematic first as a live-action/animation mash-up horror movie. Alas, however, we'll never know, but what we do know is that Cool World currently does claim a notable yet poignant cinematic last – because more than 30 years after its release, this stunning movie remains the last big-screen feature-length film directed by Bakshi.

If you'd like to pay a visit to the Cool World via the movie version that was made, be sure to click here to watch an official Cool World trailer on YouTube and experience for yourself this nonetheless highly extravagant and thoroughly entertaining live-action/animation spectacle. Also, please click here to read my review of another Bakshi animated feature film, Fire and Ice.

Finally: 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.

 

Publicity poster for Cool World (© Ralph Bakshi/Bakshi Animation/Paramount Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

HEAVY METAL

 

My official UK DVD of Heavy Metal (© Gerald Potterton/Guardian Trust Company/Canadian Film Development Corporation/Famous Players/Potterton Productions/Columbia Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

For reasons of storage space-saving and also for DVDs containing additional content not found on videos, some years back I began replacing much of my video collection with DVDs, except for ones whose movies are not available on DVD or which hold sentimental value for me. On 12 April 2023, despite now having it on DVD, I watched one of my movie videos from the latter category, because when I opened it I discovered that it still contained its original shop receipt, confirming that I had purchased it from Woolworths on 27 December 1997 in its traditional post-Christmas sale. Today, Woolworths is long gone, and so is the life that I was living then, still with my family all around, of which that humble little receipt is a poignant reminder.

And so, a little over 25 years later, I finally sat down and watched this video, which is of the early 1980s animated sci fi/fantasy anthology movie Heavy Metal (not to be confused with the Eddie Kidd motorbike-themed movie Riding High, which came out at much the same time and was retitled in some territories as Heavy Metal, and even featured a not too dissimilar cartoon cover on its video and accompanying paperback novelization).

Directed by Gerald Potterton, released in 1981 by Columbia Pictures, inspired by the long-running magazine Heavy Metal and its graphic art stories of sci fi and fantasy, and very Ralph Bakshian in its depictions of sex, nudity, and violence, Heavy Metal is nowadays widely deemed to be a cult classic, especially within the world of animation.

It consists of several separate segments, each with its own separate plot, voice cast, crew, and animation team, but linked by the presence in each one of a glowing green orb, the Loc-Nar, that speaks, claiming to be the sum of all evils, and revealing its devastating effects upon those who have sought to own it. Originally there were ten such segments, including the short 'Epilogue', but one of them, 'Neverwhere Land', was cut, to prevent the movie from running over its intended length.

There isn't enough space here to go into all the individual segments' plots – which range from a film noir-esque taxicab driver in a futuristic dystopian New York City inadvertently coming into a fortune due to the Loc-Nar's destruction of those who covet it ('Harry Canyon'), and a lonely teenage nerd who is transported to the exceedingly weird alien world of Neverwhere by the Loc-Nar but where he nonetheless becomes a happy hulking super-hero (voiced by John Candy) after rejecting the malign orb ('Den'), to a WW2 bomber pilot who is horrified to find that the Loc-Nar has transformed all of his crew into zombies ('B-17'), and a mute female warrior named Taarna astride a huge battle-bird avenging the destruction of a planet's peaceful scholar inhabitants by a barbaric horde of mutants engendered by the Loc-Nar ('Taarna') –  but suffice it to say that the cumulative effect is one that held my attention throughout.

The vivid animation is extremely good throughout, the alien worlds and entities varied in form and invariably colourful in appearance, and several classic Heavy Metal rock tracks accompany the stories, performed by the likes of Sammy Hagar, Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, Blue Oyster Cult, Nazareth, Journey, and Devo. It also includes a score by Elmer Bernstein, his first score for an animated movie.

My only gripe is that Taarna's spectacular-looking avian steed as depicted by acclaimed fantasy artist Chris Achilléos in publicity posters and video/DVD covers for this movie (see this present review's pictures) is, by contrast, far less spectacular within the actual movie itself, which was disappointing. The original Heavy Metal magazine story (entitled 'Arzach') upon which this animated Heavy Metal movie segment is based, conversely, was illustrated by the renowned French comic-strip artist/author Moebius (real name Jean Giraud), who also illustrated the Heavy Metal magazine story 'The Long Tomorrow', which in the movie became the 'Harry Canyon' segment. In addition, his artwork inspired the 1982 animated feature movie Time Masters (click here to read my review of it).

Unlike in the Ralph Bakshi mature-audience animated movies such as Fire and Ice (click here to read my review of it) and Wizards, there is little use of rotoscoping here in Heavy Metal (Taarna being the only notable exception, with Toronto model Carole Desbiens rotoscoped to create her). Consequently, the humanoid figures move in a less life-like, realistic manner, adopting a rather more fluid mode of movement as in traditional animation, but which I actually prefer to rotoscoping.

(Incidentally, if like me you're an animation fan, you'll recognize director Gerald Potterton's name, though his previous forays into animation involved projects very different from Heavy Metal. These included producing via his company Potterton's Productions the 1970s children's featurette classics The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince (both based upon Oscar Wilde short stories) plus The Little Mermaid (based upon the Hans Christian Anderson fairy story) – all three of which I loved as a youngster – and prior to those he had worked on The Beatles' full-length animated feature film Yellow Submarine.)

Some critics dismissed Heavy Metal as mindless pre-pubescent/adolescent fantasy or worse, but I enjoyed it, so what that makes me is anyone's guess, lol. Moreover, not only have I now discovered that there is a sequel movie, Heavy Metal 2000, but also I have found it on YouTube, where it is currently free to watch (click here), which is what I definitely plan to do, and in less than 25 years' time this time!

Also, in 2019 Season 1 (aka Volume 1) of a three-season, multi-episode TV show consisting of a reimagined, rebooted version of the original Heavy Metal movie, and entitled Love, Death & Robots, was released on Netflix. Season 2 followed in 2021, and Season 3 in 2022. The three seasons collectively yield 35 episodes, all stand-alone in terms of subject matter, and of varying lengths (6-21 minutes each).

If you'd like to watch on YouTube an official trailer for Heavy Metal, please click here; you can also watch most of its segments individually on there, as well as trailers for all three seasons of Love, Death & Robots.

Finally: 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 full cover of my official UK VHS sell-thru videocassette of Heavy Metal (© Gerald Potterton/Guardian Trust Company/Canadian Film Development Corporation/Famous Players/Potterton Productions/Columbia Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

FIRE AND ICE

 

Publicity poster for Fire and Ice (© Ralph Bakshi/Frank Frazetta/Producers Sales Organization/20^th Century Fox – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

My movie watch on 16 March 2023 was the 198os animated dark fantasy/swords & sorcery movie Fire and Ice, which I'd wanted to watch for a very long time but only obtained in DVD format very recently.

Directed by Ralph Bakshi, featuring characters created by him and acclaimed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, and released in 1983 by 20^th Century Fox, Fire and Ice presents its take on the only-too-familiar and all-too-predictable fantasy-themed plot of an evil despot seeking to conquer a rival kingdom but is challenged by a heroic warrior.

Thus: Lord Nekron (voiced by Sean Hannon), evil ruler of his ice kingdom, is threatening to over-run and decimate via his dark magic the fiery volcanic realm of his avowed rival, King Jarol (Leo Gordon). As a means of subjugating Jarol, Nekron sends a delegation of subhumans to abduct Jarol's daughter, Princess Teegra (Cynthia Lake for rotoscoping, but voiced by Maggie Roswell), which they do, but hot on their heels, journeying from fire to ice, literally, is youthful but valiant warrior Larn (Randy Norton), whose entire village had earlier been destroyed by Nekron's horde. Larn is assisted in his bold quest by a mysterious masked horseman and highly skilled, Conanesque warrior named Darkwolf (Steve Sandor), who has reasons of his own (but which he never reveals) to destroy Nekron.

Although more impressive than a previous Bakshi animated fantasy movie, Wizards, that I'd watched a few weeks earlier, I must confess that, in stark contrast to my high expectations based upon all that I'd read about it in the past, I wasn't overly enamoured by Fire and Ice.

The human characters are largely rotoscoped, as is common in Bakshi's animated movies, and therefore always look impressive and extremely life-like. Conversely, the plot is for me a very pedestrian, somewhat plodding affair, not picking up any real pace until two thirds of the way through its 90-minute running time, even though, paradoxically, it is packed with action.

Although this movie does feature a humungous octopus, a giant lizard, and a phalanx of flighting, pterodactylian dragon hawks, with the exception of the last-mentioned type (animated by nowadays-renowned Korean-American animator Peter Chung in his debut big-screen role) their appearances are far too brief to be effective. Certainly, it could have benefited from more prominent monsters in its prehistoric/barbarian-based fantasy world to add spectacle, especially with the incomparable Frazetta on board, whose significant input via this movie's beautiful background visuals, incorporating over a thousand paintings, as well as the design of its human lead characters, most notably the bodacious Teegra, is readily apparent.

(Having said that, Frazetta didn't actually produce the background paintings himself. Instead, they were meticulously prepared in the style of his work by two young artists who both went on achieve considerable fame in their own respective right. One was James Gurney, who subsequently created and illustrated the best-selling Dinotopia fantasy/sci fi novels. The other was Thomas Kinkade, the so-called 'Painter of Lights', who has achieved immense commercial success via his innumerable 'chocolate-box'-style paintings of rural cottages with their trademark glowing, interior-lit windows and idealized, leafy woodland/countryside settings.)

Just a little humour here and there wouldn't have gone amiss either – Fire and Ice is a VERY serious movie indeed. Time to rewatch Fritz the Cat? Now there's a Bakshi animated movie with humour, not always tasteful, needless to say, but it certainly keeps the movie ticking along at a fair old pace, unlike the less than blazing progression of Fire and Ice.

But if you want to judge for yourself, be sure to click here to watch an official Fire and Ice trailer on YouTube. Moreover, at the time of my posting this Shuker In MovieLand review, the entire movie can be watchd free of charge on YouTube by clicking here.

Finally: 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.