RENDEZVOUS

 

RENDEZVOUS is a 1935 World War One spy story from MGM, with (unfortunately) a lot of light comedic elements. 

The film is set in 1917, and former newspaperman Bill Gordon (William Powell) is itching to get to the front. American intelligence agencies, however, want Bill to work for them stateside, since he's written a book on cryptography. Gordon reluctantly takes up their offer, and he starts to investigate a German espionage ring. Bill's biggest challenge isn't foreign agents--it is the trying affections of Joel Carter (Rosalind Russell), a flighty young woman who happens to be the niece of the Assistant Secretary of War. 

There's a good spy tale inside of RENDEZVOUS, but it's overwhelmed by the screwball-like antics of Rosalind Russell's Joel Carter. The character is supposed to be a comic annoyance, but she's such an intrusion on the plot the viewer starts to wince whenever she shows up. In fairness to Russell, the role isn't written very well, and the actress wasn't even supposed to be in the movie originally--Myrna Loy was picked to play the part, but she didn't due to issues she had with MGM at the time. Russell was at the beginning of her movie career, and she was understandably nervous about replacing Loy and co-starring with Powell. If Loy did do the role, I think she would have done it in a more subtle manner. In all honesty, the story would have worked much better if the character of Joel Carter wasn't even in it--but there was no way MGM was going to star William Powell in a movie and not give him a romantic interest. 

Speaking of Powell, he's always entertaining to watch, and he tries to strike a balance to his role, with Bill Gordon seriously taking his job and wanting to get to the front lines, while at the same time still being smooth and urbane (and still winding up wearing a tuxedo at a few points.) Gordon's frustration at not being "Over There" is a major plot element, but in real life it would be a waste to have a man with such capabilities wind up being cannon fodder. 

Being that this is an MGM production, it has the expected high class gloss, and a fine supporting cast. Binnie Barnes plays a Mata Hari type who becomes a romantic rival to Rosalind Russell. Barnes' character's name is Olivia Karloff--yes, you read that right (I wonder what Boris thought of that?). Lionel Atwill is a British intelligence officer who is having an affair with Barnes. Atwill is still able to make a distinctive mark despite the fact that he's only in the first half of the film (his character comes to a surprising fate). Ironically the year before Atwill appeared in another MGM WWI spy drama, playing the same type of role, called STAMBOUL QUEST, which starred.....Myrna Loy. (That might have been a main reason why Loy didn't want to be in RENDEZVOUS--in STAMBOUL QUEST, Loy was the lead, while in this film she would have been comic relief.) The rest of the cast has such familiar faces as Cesar Romero, Henry Stephenson, Charles Trowbridge, and Samuel S. Hinds. There's also "blink and you'll miss them" cameos by Margaret Dumont and Mickey Rooney. 

RENDEZVOUS was directed by William K. Howard and the cinematographer was William Daniels, but while researching info about this movie on the internet, I learned that the ending of it was re-shot with director Sam Wood and cinematographer James Wong Howe, the duo that worked on.....STAMBOUL QUEST. I don't know what the original ending was, but I assume it was changed to make William Powell's character more heroic. 

Something else I learned about the production of this film....while watching it I noticed that a couple of times William Powell's lines are dubbed by what was obviously another person. I couldn't understand why, I just assumed that there wasn't enough time to do it properly, but I discovered that MGM was attempting to edit out the mention of the words "German" or "Germany", because supposedly the studio didn't want to offend the current regime! If that's true, that's very disappointing--and it also doesn't make much sense, since from what I can remember other characters in the film do mention Germany, and spies are shown in the story speaking German, and anyone who watched this film in 1935 had to have known that Germany was the main antagonist in World War One. 

The main attributes of RENDEZVOUS are William Powell and Lionel Atwill, but the silly antics of Rosalind Russell's character prevents it from being above average. 

THE TERRORNAUTS

 

I haven't seen every film made by Amicus Productions, the British outfit run by producers Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky that was a rival to Hammer Films in the 1960s and 70s, but I think it's safe to say that the worst movie from that company has to be the 1967 science fiction story THE TERRORNAUTS. 

Actually calling this film science fiction is somewhat of an insult to the genre. THE TERRORNAUTS does have spaceships, a robot, and aliens, but it's also cheap, the pace is interminable, and the characters are dull. 

Inspired by a childhood incident, British astronomer Dr. Joe Burke (Simon Oates) is convinced he can contact beings from outer space by radio. He gets funding to create Project Startalk, and he has his own lab on the site of a large observatory. Burke, however, hasn't made or received any contact from space in four years, and his funding is in danger of being cut off. Burke and his team--assistants Ben (Stanley Meadows) and Sandy (Zena Marshall)--finally do receive a signal, but in the process of responding to it, their lab is taken straight out of the ground and captured by an alien spacecraft. On exploring the craft, Burke and his friends discover that it is up to them to take information from a dead alien race and use it to save the Earth from invaders. 

That generic plot description I just wrote makes THE TERRORNAUTS sound way more intriguing than it really is. Even with a running time of around 75 minutes, the story takes forever to get going, and director Montgomery Tully (a long-time British B-movie veteran) handles things as simply as possible. Simon Oates and Stanley Meadows are very bland actors, and Zena Marshall (who played the sexy Miss Taro in DR. NO) has little to do other than be the obligatory beautiful young woman. 

Also along for the ride inside the captured lab building is Charles Hawtrey, who plays the accountant of the foundation that has funded Project Startalk, and Patricia Hayes, who is the observatory's tea lady. The two are supposed to be the story's comic relief, but.....they're not funny. (Hawtrey appeared in a number of CARRY ON films, and he's kind of a British version of Don Knotts.) 

THE TERRORNAUTS could best be compared to a DOCTOR WHO episode made around the same time, except that the average 1960s WHO program would be way more entertaining, and have much better special effects. The FX for THE TERRORNAUTS is credited to legendary technician Les Bowie's company, but it's hard to believe Bowie would allow such slapdash work to get on the screen--one assumes he didn't have much time or much of a budget. Watching this film (or trying to stay awake and watch it, as was my experience), one gains more respect for the talents of filmmakers like Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti, who could have easily made something much more out of this whole affair. 

Surprisingly the script was not written by Milton Subotsky, who usually penned (or tried to have input into) the majority of Amicus' features. One wonders why this movie was made at all, or at least why it was made at such a low budget and with such a lackluster cast & crew. THE TERRORNAUTS was paired with another Amicus sci-fi non-epic, THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE, for a very mediocre double bill. It must be pointed out, though, that THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE looks like a masterpiece compared to its running mate. 

It appears that Milton Subotsky was hoping that THE TERRORNAUTS would be a follow up to Amicus' two Dr. Who big screen adventures--a pair of films that were tailored to kids and those with vivid imaginations. The only thing imaginative about THE TERRORNAUTS is that it will probably put you to sleep, and then you'll dream up a scenario that's far more energetic and captivating. As far as I know, THE TERRORNAUTS has never had a major home video release in North America, and there are very good reasons for that. 

THE COCKLESHELL HEROES

 

One of my favorite movie genres is the World War II film. It might be surprising to some how extensive that genre is--there's still plenty of major features about the conflict that I haven't caught up to yet. Last night I viewed for the first time a 1955 British production called THE COCKLESHELL HEROES, which stars Jose Ferrer, who also directed. 

THE COCKLESHELL HEROES is loosely based on the real-life Operation Frankton, in which a group of British Royal Marines were dropped off the coast of France, and then made their way up river to Bordeaux, traveling in two-man kayaks. The Marines then attempted to attach limpet mines on various German merchant ships, hoping to damage or destroy them. The operation took place in late 1942, and only two of the Marines involved in the mission survived.  

Most British WWII movies made around the time of THE COCKLESHELL HEROES were taut, down-to-earth stories that were usually in black & white, and focused more on character and plot instead of large-scale battle scenes. THE COCKLESHELL HEROES has more flair than these, being in color and in Cinemascope. 

Jose Ferrer plays Major Stringer, a canoe expert who comes up with the plan to destroy German ships docked at Bordeaux. Stringer is assigned to gather up a team for the mission, and attached to the group is Captain Thompson (Trevor Howard). Thompson is a life-long by-the-book Marine, who has spent most of his career behind a desk, and he's jealous of the idea of a "newcomer" like Stringer getting a chance to lead and take part in a dangerous mission. Stringer has only been in uniform since the war started, and he has very different ideas on how to train and encourage individuals. Needless to say, the two men clash often, but they eventually learn to appreciate how the other thinks and start to work together for the benefit of the operation. 

The "two military officers who are total opposites from each other" is a familiar war movie trope, and THE COCKLESHELL HEROES has plenty of others, such as a motley group of men being whipped into shape, a tough drill sergeant, one of the group going AWOL before the mission due to a marital problem, and a last-minute incident that causes a major change in plans for the operation. This movie is so effectively done, however, that this isn't a handicap. 

Most of the film is taken up with the training of the men by Stringer and Thompson, and there's a lot of light humor in these sequences (maybe too much for some viewers). There's even a pub scene which has a beautiful Wren singing a song about London right before a comedic brawl breaks out between the Marines and members of the Royal Navy. Once the mission begins, things become much more suspenseful. 

Jose Ferrer does well as Stringer, although some may find it hard to see him as a British war hero. Trevor Howard might have been a better choice as Stringer, and the actor plays Thompson as if he knows this. The supporting cast is filled with fine British players such as Victor Maddern, Anthony Newley, David Lodge, Peter Arne, Percy Herbert, and John Van Eyssen. Christopher Lee has a very small role as the captain of the submarine that transports the Marines to the coast of France. 

Jose Ferrer also does well as a director, although it has to be said he got a lot of help from plenty of British behind-the-camera talent. The excellent cinematography was by Ted Moore and John Wilcox, and the rousing music score was by John Addison. The screenplay was by Bryan Forbes and Richard Maibaum, and the film was made by Warwick Productions, a company run by Irving Allen and future Bond producer Albert Broccoli. (A lot of the crew involved with THE COCKLESHELL HEROES would work on future Bond films, such as Ted Moore and Richard Maibaum). 

I enjoyed THE COCKLESHELL HEROES. The characters in the film are fictional, but the picture does present the basic details of the actual mission, and the cast helps make the story entertaining to watch. The movie was very successful when it originally played in the U.K., and it is one that American war movie fans need to seek out if they are not aware of it. 

THE LAST REBEL

 

THE LAST REBEL is a 1971 Euro Western that features professional football star quarterback Joe Namath as the leading man--and that's the most noteworthy thing about it. 

Somewhere in Missouri in April, 1865, Confederate soldiers Hollis (Joe Namath) and Matt (Jack Elam) are at a lonely outpost when word comes in of General Lee's surrender in Virginia. Hollis and Matt fear they will be sent to a prison camp, so they head for the hills. During their flight they prevent a black man named Duncan (Woody Strode) from being lynched, and the now-trio bring in a runaway stagecoach to a nearby town. While there Hollis wins thousands of dollars from a pool shark, inciting plenty of scoundrels to go after the sum, including Matt, who has turned against his fellow Confederate. 

Despite the fact that it was shot in Italy, THE LAST REBEL was produced & directed by Larry G. Spangler and written by Warren Kiefer (THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD), who were both Americans. This may account for the film's underwhelming tone. THE LAST REBEL is rather tepid compared to the usual examples of low-budget spaghetti westerns. There's not all that much action, at least until the climax, and even the amount of money that everyone in the story covets is far lower than the average pile of Euro Western loot. THE LAST REBEL could have even been mounted as a TV movie with just a few trimmings. 

Joe Namath is no Clint Eastwood, but he does have a low-key, laid-back type of charisma, and he does appear comfortable in front of the camera. There isn't all that much to the character of Hollis, however. He seems to be an amiable fellow that wants nothing more than a good time, and other than the fact that he's played by Joe Namath, there's nothing that really makes a viewer want to know what's going to happen to him. The title of THE LAST REBEL is a misnomer--it makes one think that Hollis is a true-blue son of the South, committed to the cause, but he doesn't have any major convictions one way or the other. If Hollis is so much of a "rebel", why did he risk his life to save a black man from a lynching? That incident never gets fully explained in the film, and neither does the bond that develops between Hollis and Woody Strode's Duncan. Namath's "Broadway Joe" playboy image gets a lot of play here, as every major female character swoons over Hollis as soon as they first lay eyes on him. 

There's an attempt to inject a racial element in THE LAST REBEL, but it's handled in a very clumsy manner. At one point Jack Elam's Matt and some of his goons go after Hollis and Duncan while dressed as Klansmen, and Duncan forges an alliance with a young orphan black child. This attempt at social commentary feels out of place, and there should have been much more development of the characters instead. 

Jack Elam and Woody Strode are always welcome in any Western, but they don't have much to work with here (Elam's transition from being Namath's sidekick to wanting to kill him is very abrupt.) Ty Hardin plays the sheriff of the town, and his character acts inconsistently as well. The rest of the supporting cast, even the ladies, are very generic types. 

I have to mention the music score, which was provided by Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord and British musician Tony Ashton. To say that it is eclectic is an understatement--it's one of the most unusual scores I've ever heard for a Euro Western (if you're a fan of this genre, you know that's saying something). The score changes tone constantly, and there's even a few songs, and they sound more fitting for a contemporary drama. 

THE LAST REBEL was an obvious attempt at using the fame of Joe Namath to attract moviegoers. At the time Namath was a huge pop icon--in some ways, he still is--and he had already made a splash with the biker film C.C. & COMPANY, which paired him with Ann-Margaret, to the delight of gossip columnists everywhere. Namath could have picked a much more interesting spaghetti western to appear in--THE LAST REBEL meanders along until the climax, which seems set up just for the excuse of the main characters to engage in a shootout. 

Joe Namath didn't have much of a movie career after THE LAST REBEL--he certainly didn't make as much of a mark on the big screen as his contemporaries Jim Brown and O.J. Simpson did. Namath's best role was playing himself on all sorts of TV shows and commercials, where his cool-guy persona was able to come through best. You know there's a problem with THE LAST REBEL when it isn't even able to let a dynamic personality like Joe Namath shine. 

STARSHIP INVASIONS

 

Since I wrote a post on END OF THE WORLD yesterday, I might as well do one on the other 1977 sci-fi flick starring Christopher Lee: STARSHIP INVASIONS. 

Lee plays Captain Rameses, the commander of a flying saucer and its crew who are sent to Earth to determine if the planet is suitable for conquest. Rameses's race needs a new home, since their planet's sun is dying. Before any plans can be implemented, Rameses must deal with an intergalactic league that has a secret base on Earth underwater. This league secretly watches over the Earth. Rameses and his crew attack and take over the base, but a league ship manages to escape and make contact with a UFO researcher named Allan Duncan (Robert Vaughn). The good aliens and Duncan join forces to fight Rameses and his incoming fleet, and stop the signal that is causing people all over Earth to commit suicide. 

STARSHIP INVASIONS is another low-budget science fiction feature that bites off more than it can chew. The production just isn't able to properly depict outer space battles and ship-to-ship dogfights. The worst aspect of the movie, however, is its timing. It was released during the same period as STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and those two spectaculars immediately made STARSHIP INVASIONS appear ridiculous in comparison. 

It's a bit unfair to compare this film with STAR WARS. STARSHIP INVASIONS was influenced by the UFO craze of the 1970s, and it also has a "Chariots of the Gods" aspect to it. (The good aliens inform Robert Vaughn that they have been observing Earth for thousands of years, and they were the ones who built the pyramids in Egypt. Captain Rameses also informs his crew that they are descendants of Earth beings.) A lot of the UFO urban legends are trotted out in the story, including the idea that aliens abduct dopey rural folk. All the spaceships, even the ones the good aliens fly, are similar-looking flying saucers (apparently throughout the galaxy you can only get the same basic make and model of transport). The good aliens have to hide themselves from humanity because we're too dumb and violent to accept them, etc. 

The best idea contained in writer-producer-director Ed Hunt's script is that there is a secret base under the ocean on Earth, a sort of rest area for intergalactic beings (the base is shaped like a pyramid). This rest area even has a reception room filled with young attractive females dressed in scanty outfits--not only does the intergalactic league believe in peace and harmony, they also believe in having a good time as well. All the aliens in STARSHIP INVASIONS wear form-fitting outfits that resemble workout garments (it appears that none of the aliens are overweight). Captain Rameses and his crew wear black outfits with a bizarre form of headgear (see picture above). The bad aliens have a winged serpent emblazoned on their uniforms, which makes them look like extras from either a sword & sandal epic or background soldiers from a kung fu picture. The base also comes staffed with a group of very clunky looking androids who wouldn't have passed muster in any episode of DOCTOR WHO being made at the time. 

It has to be said that despite having to wear this type of costume Christopher Lee still is able to maintain a commanding presence, but there's no getting over the fact that he looks distinctly uncomfortable in it. Lee's performance also isn't helped by the fact that the aliens communicate telepathically. The viewer is able to hear their thoughts through voice overs, but the actors playing the outer space beings are stuck having to stare glumly at one another. Even though we can hear Lee reciting Rameses's thoughts, he himself is not able to act while speaking--and believe me, that does make a difference. (Since we hear what the aliens are thinking anyway, what was the point of the telepathic powers? I assume it was just a way to make them more alien.) 

The only other recognizable name in the cast is Robert Vaughn. To his credit, he doesn't play down to the material. He makes his UFO researcher a relatable and believable figure. There isn't much to say about the other characters, who are all unmemorable. 

If STARSHIP INVASIONS had been made 5 or 10 years earlier, it might have been received better, but coming along with the likes of STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, it had no chance. The film made its American TV network debut fairly quickly (I even remember seeing commercials for it), but I'm sure it had very little impact. 

Christopher Lee would finally wind up in an actual STAR WARS film about 20-some years later--ATTACK OF THE CLONES. I wonder if while working on CLONES Lee thought about his mediocre 1977 sci-fi double feature. He probably was hoping that no one else on the set was thinking about them. STARSHIP INVASIONS not only gives one a sense of what low budget movie sci-fi was before STAR WARS, it also shows how deep the UFO craze was at the time. I'm surprised the movie didn't try to bring in Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster--it might have been a lot more entertaining if it had. 

END OF THE WORLD

 

One thing about being a Christopher Lee fan is that you can never run out of titles in which to watch him perform. END OF THE WORLD is a 1977 science fiction story, produced in the USA by Charles Band, which I recently acquired on DVD (at a cheap price of course). 

1977 saw the release of STAR WARS, which featured Christopher Lee's close friend and frequent co-star Peter Cushing. As for Lee, 1977 saw him appearing in END OF THE WORLD and STARSHIP INVASIONS, a couple of sci-fi flicks that are at a far lesser level than George Lucas' blockbuster. END OF THE WORLD has Lee playing two roles--a priest named Father Pergado and his alien clone. 

The movie starts out with plenty of bangs, as a dazed Father Pergado stumbles into a diner late at night, and asks to use the telephone to call the authorities. Before the priest can contact anyone, things start exploding all over the diner, and the man working the counter is killed. Father Pergado returns to his convent, where he is welcomed by his exact double. 

After this promising opening, the story slows down to a crawl, as it follows a NASA scientist named Andrew Boran (Kirk Scott) who is puzzled by a number of strange signals he has been monitoring from space. While Boran and his wife Sylvia (Sue Lyon) go out on a lecture tour, they investigate the signals, which lead them to the convent where Father Pergado resides. The Borans learn that the priest and the nuns of the convent have all been duplicated by aliens, and these beings need to fix their time/space portal in order to get back to their native planet. Andrew just so happens to be working with a device called a "Variance crystal"--the exact type of device the aliens need, so they force the scientist to bring it to them. There's another major reason the aliens want to get away from Earth--a number of ecological disasters have been triggered, which will lead to the planet's destruction. 

Christopher Lee is the major reason to watch END OF THE WORLD, but he isn't in it enough. Much of the running time of the film is taken up with Kirk Scott and Sue Lyon (who played the title role in Kubrick's LOLITA) going from one place to another, and the duo are not very interesting. (If this film were made in the 1950s, the lead couple would have been played by the likes of Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday--and they would have been a lot more entertaining to watch.) The movie's ultra-low budget probably wouldn't have been enough for a major TV network program made during the same period, and it's saddled by one of the most annoying music scores I've ever heard. 

The cheap production values account for the plot's inconsistencies. The fake Father and his coterie of nuns have all sorts of super powers, but they can't venture anywhere away from the convent. The disasters befalling Earth are presented through stock footage from other films. There are cameos from veteran actors such as Lew Ayres, Dean Jagger, and Macdonald Carey, but they don't really add anything to the story, other than pad the running time. (In his biography of Lee, Jonathan Rigby quotes the actor as saying he agreed to be in the project due to the fact that he was told the likes of Arthur Kennedy, Jose Ferrer, and John Carradine were going to be in the picture. Even if they had been, it's doubtful Lee would have had scenes with them, since he doesn't share the screen with any of the guest stars who were actually in it.) 

Lee had just played a dangerous priest in TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER, and despite the bargain basement aspects of the production, he's still able to give the alien Pergado an eerie presence. As the results of the fake Pergado's powers are shown on screen, a close-up of Lee's eyes is superimposed.....a device that recalls scenes from the actor's Dracula films, and goes all the way back to Bela Lugosi. The creepiest thing in the movie other than Lee is the group of cloned nuns, a dour-looking handful of middle-aged women who might bring up bad memories for those who attended Catholic schools. 

END OF THE WORLD does have an unusual climax, which one could say is either a clever deviation from how one would expect the movie to end, or just a cheap way to wrap things up. The ending doesn't have the impact it should have because one never feels the entire world is at risk, only a very, very small part of it. 

One thing about the DVD I purchased--the disc case states that the version used comes from a 16mm remastered print, but the sound and picture quality are mediocre. END OF THE WORLD is another of a long line of features that didn't deserve (or make the best use of) the talents of Christopher Lee. 

THE GIANT OF MARATHON

 

THE GIANT OF MARATHON is a 1959 Italian-French historical epic dealing with the conflict between Greece and Persia in 490 B.C. It stars Steve Reeves, who had helped start the Golden Age of Sword & Sandal adventures after playing Hercules in the late 1950s. 

In this film Reeves is Phillipides, a renowned athlete and member of the "Sacred Guard" of Athens. Athens, and all of Greece, is under threat from Persia. A leading citizen of Athens named Teocrito (Sergio Fantoni) is conspiring with the Persians, hoping to gain power when they conquer Greece. Phillipides has fallen for the beautiful Andromeda (Mylene Demongeot), but she is betrothed to Teocrito, and her father is also in on the conspiracy. Phillipides helps raise an army to fight the Persians at Marathon, and then makes his famous run back to Athens to warn the populace about the Persians' naval invasion. A major sea battle takes place, where the Greeks are victorious and Phillpides saves Andromeda from the clutches of Teocrito. 

THE GIANT OF MARATHON (original title LA BATTAGLIA DI MARATONA) is best known now for the involvement that the great cinematic artist Mario Bava had on it. Bava was cinematographer, creator of special effects, and he also directed numerous scenes in the film. The movie's credited directors are Jacques Tourneur and Bruno Vailati (who was also the producer and co-writer). Various sources give different reasons for why Jacques Tourneur didn't helm the entire feature--he either left the production early or he wasn't all that interested in it. THE GIANT OF MARATHON doesn't seem to be the type of story that would suit Tourneur's own considerable talents, but it certainly was fitting for Bava, who had worked on the two Hercules films with Steve Reeves and had also come to the rescue of a number of other Italian-made projects. 

If one is a Mario Bava aficionado, and knowledgeable about his films, it's easy to spot familiar shot compositions and camera set-ups throughout THE GIANT OF MARATHON. A set of columns are used several times in the movie, in different shots and in different arrangements. Bava did a similar trick in HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD, a movie he officially directed and had much more control over. 

THE GIANT OF MARATHON is more of a historical war story than an entry in the muscleman/mythology genre. Phillipides may have great athletic prowess, but he doesn't have supernatural powers. He's not invincible or all-powerful (although at one point Reeves does push large boulders down a hillside). In this film Reeves is clean-shaven, and his hair is shorter than usual, and the result is that he doesn't look as imposing as he normally does. Reeves (as expected) is dubbed on the English soundtrack, which doesn't help his performance, but he's his typical stalwart self, although there's nothing that makes Phillipides very notable, other than inadvertently inventing the marathon athletic event. 

The exquisite Mylene Demongeot is a perfect innocent damsel in distress, while Sergio Fantoni makes a good villain as the surly Teocrito (as soon as he's first shown in the movie, you know the guy's up to no good). In just about every sword & sandal picture made during this period, there's a dark-haired exotic temptress who is a counterpoint to the fair maiden, and in THE GIANT OF MARATHON it's Daniela Rocco as Karis, who Teocrito uses to distract Phillipides. 

A lengthy battle at sea takes up much of the climax of THE GIANT OF MARATHON. The battle is enlivened by the use of flaming spears against the Persian fleet, and there's a lot of underwater action (unusual in a film of this type). During the battle Phillipides gets somewhat lost in the shuffle. All the action scenes in MARATHON are handled adequately, but they don't flow as smoothly as they should. The overall film has an uneven pace (probably due to the multiple directors) and there's a lot of dialogue--something a dubbed production should avoid. 

THE GIANT OF MARATHON is a decent time-filler but it's not one of the more notable Italian ancient historical epics. The movie would have been much better off if Mario Bava had total control of the project. His HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD is much more cinematic, memorable, and entertaining. Galatea Productions, one of the companies involved in the making of THE GIANT OF MARATHON, was so impressed with Bava's work that they gave him a chance to make his official directorial debut with the now iconic BLACK SUNDAY. 

BLANCHE FURY

 

BLANCHE FURY is a 1948 British Victorian melodrama starring Valerie Hobson and Stewart Granger. 

Set around 1860, the story concerns Blanche Fuller (Valerie Hobson), a young woman working as a servant. Blanche's parents are deceased, and she's on her own, trying to support herself. Her headstrong ways, however, constantly get her into trouble with her employers. Blanche receives a letter from a rich uncle who she's never really known, inviting her to become a governess to her cousin's young daughter. Blanche takes up the position, and moves into the large, imposing Fury estate. She's determined to use her situation to better herself, and she marries her cousin, Laurence (Michael Gough), even though she doesn't love him. Blanche's affections are for the estate's overseer, Philip Thorn (Stewart Granger). Philip happens to be an illegitimate member of the Fury family, and he has a major chip on his shoulder, because he believes the estate should belong to him. Philip takes drastic steps to make this possible, with some help from Blanche. The duo's plans to live the rest of their lives together in comfort are ruined by Philip's determination to have everything his own way, and Blanche's realization that she's not as conniving as her lover after all. 

BLANCHE FURY is a well-mounted production, with impressive costumes and sets, and sumptuous Technicolor. Guy Green is credited with the interior photography, while Geoffrey Unsworth gets the nod for the exteriors (which he presents in a striking and impressionistic manner). Oswald Morris, who would later become a renowned cinematographer himself, worked as a camera operator on this picture. 

The vibrant color does much to enhance Valerie Hobson's beauty, but in this film there's a coldness to her looks. Blanche is a woman who has spent her young life working for others who she thinks are beneath her, and as soon as she gets to the Fury estate she plans to take advantage of things. Her ambitions are shared by Philip, the dark, brooding bad boy who wants revenge on his relatives who look down on him. The result is that this is a film with no likable major characters. One can understand why Blanche and Philip act the way they do, but one doesn't root for them to get away with their schemes--especially when one realizes that because this is a movie made in 1948, they're not going to get away with it. 

One reason for BLANCHE FURY being notable is that it is the film debut of Michael Gough. Gough's character here is a weak aristocrat who has a sense of entitlement and likes to tell people what to do, but he's not man enough to live up to his status. This type of role is one that Gough would play throughout his entire distinguished career. Hammer Film fans will also notice George Woodbridge as a hired hand on the estate. 

Speaking of Hammer Films...this movie has a lot of elements in common with that production company. One could easily imagine Hazel Court in the role of Blanche, and Christopher Lee as Philip. The actual film was directed by Marc Allegret, and it was produced by Anthony Havelock-Allen (who was married to Valerie Hobson at the time). 

A dark soap opera, BLANCHE FURY has plenty of style, and plenty of passion from the two main leads. It doesn't have much warmth to it, however (the ending is particularly depressing).