Monday, June 12, 2006

Robert Aldrich

John Patterson pays tribute to director Robert Aldrich in Saturday's Guardian.

Hands of the Ripper (1971)


By the early 1970s, Hammer Studios were in decline. Amid such poor offerings as Horror of Frankenstein, Lust for a Vampire and Scars of Dracula, director Peter Sasdy was one of the saving graces of this late era in Hammer's history.

There are not many of the essential Hammer canon I have yet to see, but Hands of the Ripper was one I hadn't seen until last night. Turned out to be a solidly crafted gothic thriller as I would expect from Sasdy. It has a number of things in common with his earlier Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969); the real villains in both films are the duplicitous and hypocritical bourgeois society. It also has a fabulous ending in which the anti-heroine (Angharad Rees) falls to her death from the Whispering Gallery of St Paul's Cathedral, a remarkable echo of Dracula's demise in the earlier film (where the Count falls to his death inside an old church).

Dr Pritchard (Eric Porter) stood fascinatingly in the mould of Terence Fisher's Baron Frankenstein (beginning with The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957). Outwardly, both are gentlemen with impeccable manners, and yet both are motivated by such fanatical zeal that they are prepared to sacrifice other human beings in the name of scientific advancement. They are both supremely ambiguous characters; our ambivalence towards them is heightened by the fact the rest of society are so loathsome.

I was struck particularly by the similarity to Fisher's Frankenstein Created Woman (1967): Both involved a middle-aged man taking in a vulnerable girl with the double-purpose of helping her overcome a disadvantage and using her as a scientific experiment. Ironic overtones of Shaw's Pygmalion here, too. This similarity indicates Sasdy's closeness to Fisher, as David Pirie noted in his seminal work on British horror (A Heritage of Horror, 1975). Sasdy did well to create a new gothic horror that kept such continuity with the great Hammer tradition; in this respect Sasdy is the worthiest - perhaps only - true successor to Fisher's mantle in Hammer's closing years.

My rating? These things are so inadequate. If I could add on another half, I would. 3/5 * * * * *

Monday, June 05, 2006

Revisiting Garden State (2004)

I'm a sucker for quirky comedy dramas about emotionally vulnerable people (perhaps because my whole life is a quirky comedy-drama about an emotionally vulnerable person), and so I didn't even think twice about buying Garden State on DVD having seen only the trailer.

On first viewing, about six months ago, I was disappointed. I found it derivative and messy.

On second viewing, I enjoyed it a lot more. I liked the way the characters developed and how their traits and foibles were revealed as the story went along. I admit I find Natalie Portman a tad annoying - she whines too much - but I was willing to overlook this, and found I really engaged with the main characters.

The end was an annoying cliche, but I'm not pretending this is a masterpiece. However, it is warm, and it's grown on me. It is also very funny. Not a bad effort for a first-time director (Zach Braff) doubling up in the starring role.

My rating? * * * * *