An American Hippie in Israel (1972) – *
There’s a dream sequence partway through An American Hippie in Israel that features some imaginatively surreal imagery, most notably two figures with tape recorders for heads being assaulted with a sledgehammer by the titular character, Vietnam veteran Mike (Asher Tzarfati). There’s also a recurring pair of white-faced, black-suited men who seem to serve as Mike’s personal Grim Reapers – but they’re also visible to the other characters. These sequences, taken out of context, might convince you that An American Hippie is one trippy film, and well worth seeing ironically, or even sincerely.
The rest of the film, however, is so absurdly padded, heavy-handed, and repetitive as to test the ironic viewer’s patience, unless a drinking game is made of how often Mike and his friends say “love,” “free”/”freedom,” or “beautiful.” There’s no dialogue for the last few minutes of the film, only animalistic grunting, and it’s about as profound as any of the words spoken beforehand.
See, Mike has been backpacking around the world for a couple of years, trying to shake off the bad vibes of the war, and has come to Israel on a whim. While hitch-hiking, he meets Elizabeth (Lily Avidan), a young actress from a well-off family, and they instantly become an item, having sex on the living-room carpet after he monologues about the horrors of going to war at 19.
Determined to leave our brutal society behind, they recruit a large group of local flower children, and during a freak-out in a random warehouse Mike suggests they form a commune where they can live in peace, love, and understanding. (No one thinks to mention kibbutzim.) Unfortunately, most of these pure souls are massacred by the white-faced men, leaving only Mike, Elizabeth, Françoise (Tzila Karney), and her Israeli boyfriend Komo (Shmuel Wolf).
They drive (and drive, and drive, and drive) in search of their utopia, finally finding a small island which they access via raft. It’s quite barren, so how they expected to actually live there is anyone’s guess. After some skinny-dipping, a few vapid speeches, and a shag apiece, our heroes awaken to find their raft missing. Mike is ready to swim back to shore and take Elizabeth’s car, but the waters are plagued by (incredibly fake) sharks.
Thirst and hunger soon set in. There’s little food to be found except limpets. Komo doesn’t speak much English, and Mike hasn’t bothered to learn a lick of Hebrew, exacerbating the tension between them. Finally, their paradise descends into brutal chaos, until all four characters are killed fighting over a goat. (They bought a goat before going to the island. Maybe for milk. No idea what the goat was going to eat.) The white-faced men drive off with Elizabeth’s car.
There’s barely enough plot here for a short, let alone a 93-minute feature. We get long scenes of driving, dancing, walking, and sex, and we hear the same things said over and over. If writer-director Amos Sefer was trying to critique the foolish idealism and unsustainability of the hippie subculture, he stacks the deck by having the characters behave so stupidly and thoughtlessly as to be farcical. And if he was trying to be bittersweet about the impossibility of living without conflict, well, that conflict maybe should’ve come from a more complex source than the inability of the characters to plan so much as a camping trip.
And it might’ve been nice to have a more varied soundtrack, instead of the one tune we hear over and over, with bizarre lines like:
And children go on playing
’cause they don’t hear what we’re saying, but
someday they’ll have to pay
for taking time to play…
At the very least, Ya’ackov Kallach’s cinematography isn’t too bad, mainly on account of the nice scenery, despite the heavy-handed imagery Sefer indulges in, like the opening sequence of flowers being crushed by a driverless steamroller. Some scenes, like the argument between Mike and Komo, are in theory a pointed breakdown of American arrogance and what happens when idealism runs into practical reality. And the acting, while bad, doesn’t really make the film any worse – Tzarfati is believably lost in fantasies of free love and sticking it to the man.
There are good-bad moments scattered throughout An American Hippie (some of Sefer’s staging is notably amateurish), but only devoted bad-movie buffs should bother; there’s far too much filler to keep the more casual viewer from growing restless. It’s not even a bad trip, it’s just boring.
Score: 18
The Sword in the Stone (1963) – ***
I know I saw The Sword in the Stone at least a couple of times in my childhood, but I only really remembered two sequences: when Merlin turns himself and “Wart” (who will grow up to be King Arthur) into squirrels, and a female squirrel falls madly in love with the befuddled Wart, and when Merlin and his rival, Mistress Mim, have a wizard’s duel and transform themselves into all manner of creatures, ending with Merlin turning into a germ which makes Mim comically ill. A few bits and pieces came back as I rewatched it (for the first time in over 20 years, I’m sure), but nothing like when I rewatched One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
Partly, I’m sure, because I saw Dalmatians more often, but also because it’s a much better film. Frankly, I was surprised how little I cared for Sword this time around, but really is one of the weaker animated features released during Walt’s lifetime. It’s not bad, of course, but it just doesn’t have the magic of the true Disney classics.
Maybe it’s because there isn’t really that much of a story. Merlin, with his capacity for prophecy, knows he’ll have a visitor one afternoon, and guesses he’ll be a young boy. Wart, meanwhile, is tagging along with Kay, the obnoxious son of his foster father Sir Ector, on a hunting trip, and after causing a mishap, finds himself literally dropping in at Merlin’s for tea. Merlin, knowing that he has a key part to play in Wart’s future, declares that he’ll be the boy’s tutor, and after proving his magical abilities to Wart and Ector, sets up shop in a ramshackle tower in Ector’s castle.
Merlin turns Wart into a fish, a squirrel, and a sparrow, aiming to teach him the virtues of wisdom and strategy, rejecting the brute force which is so cherished in medieval England—and by the various natural predators he encounters in these forms, most notably Madame Mim and a persistent wolf who seems to be first cousin to Wile E. Coyote. Finally, serving as Kay’s squire at a tournament in London, Wart pulls a sword out of a stone, not knowing (as we know) that this proves him the rightful king of England.
Stuck on the throne, King Arthur is greatly relieved to have Merlin (who temporarily took off for 20th-century Bermuda) by his side as he tries to figure out how to be a king. But we know he’ll be an effective one, and we smile when Merlin suggests a motion picture might be made about him.
It may sound as if the film has more of a plot than it really does. But much of the running time is given over to antics rather than actually telling a story. Mim, for example, is never seen or mentioned before or after her appearance; her duel with Merlin, enjoyable as it is, doesn’t have anything to with Wart’s journey to becoming Arthur; she was in the original version of T.H. White’s novel, but not the revision I read, so I can’t say how close she is to the original.
To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of the novel, finding White’s style and various conceits wearisome, and set aside The Once and Future King after finishing the first section. But aside from Merlin’s knowledge of the future, which allows for ample anachronistic humor (broader than White’s frequently pointed commentary) and his changing Wart into various animals as part of his education, the film owes little to the novel. (My favorite scene in the novel, where Wart is turned into an ant and experiences their martial collective consciousness firsthand—clearly referencing 20th-century fascism—is not adapted.)
The thin story wouldn’t be a problem if the characters were more compelling, but Wart is too passive and flat to really root for, not helped by the obvious use of three separate voice actors (Rickie Sorensen, Richard Reitherman, and Robert Reitherman) none of whom are very good and all of whom sound like 20th century Americans, quite jarring in the medieval setting. Merlin (Karl Swenson) is more compelling, but there’s not really that much to him, either—he’s a crustily lovable, addled yet wise old wizard, which isn’t quite enough to make up for Wart’s dullness. His crotchety owl, Archimedes (Junius Matthews) is livelier, but he’s let down—as are most of the characters—by the oddly flat dialogue.
Bill Peet was an accomplished writer, and he did an admirable job on One Hundred and One Dalmatians, but perhaps being caught between White’s dense novel and the demands of Disney undermined his talents, and the results tend to be rather generic and sitcommy. The episode with Mim (Martha Wentworth) has a vigor and imagination – and sense of real character – the rest of the film frankly lacks. And the squirrel sequence, namely the plight of Arthur’s inamorata (Ginny Tyler), is genuinely affecting—and never referenced again after it happens.
The animation is fine, but definitely not peak Disney; aside from some lovely views of the English countryside, it’s pretty standard work for the era. The character designs are adequate, but again, aside from Mim, who’s delightfully grotesque (even her “beautiful” form is unsettling), they’re not terribly memorable. George Bruns’ Oscar-nominated music is pleasant, especially the piano-driven “magic hijinks” theme, though it rarely makes much effort to evoke the period; the songs by the Sherman brothers don’t reach the heights they would in Mary Poppins, but “Higitus Figitus” and “Mad Madame Mim” are enjoyable.
And that’s really what it comes down to—this is an enjoyable enough film, at least on its own, but it never comes to life the way the best Disney films do. Or so I’d say: when I posted on social media that I was rewatching this film, numerous friends of mine commented with their own praise and affection for it. So it has its advocates. I’m just not one of them.
Score: 70
How about some more shorts, including those which appear on the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? Top 1000 list?
- Un Chien Andalou/An Andalusian Dog (1929) – For being a collaboration between two titans of surrealism – Luis Buñuel at the start of his film career and Salvador Dalí, in one of the few films he ever worked on – and for a handful of iconic images, from the sliced eyeball at the start to the ants pouring out of a (stigmatic?) hole in a man’s hand to the piano topped with dead donkeys, this has become one of the most legendary short films ever made. But it’s not just a sequence of disturbing images, there’s something of a story here as well, dealing with a perverse young man (Pierre Batcheff) harassing a young woman (Simone Mareuil). It’s undeniably a milestone in film history, and the use of Tristan und Isolde on the soundtrack (well, it’s a silent, but that was Buñuel’s chosen accompaniment) is amusingly at odds with the imagery, but I confess it left me somewhat cold, at least this time around. Score: 75 – ***
- Tale of Tales/Skazka skazok/Сказка сказок (1979) – Yuri Norstein’s impressionistic depiction of his childhood and the impact of World War II on the Soviet Union (he was born in 1941) is hard to describe, but as the film itself uses very few words – only the lyrics of a lullaby – it is perhaps best simply to say that it is a work of great beauty, using cut-out and multiplane animation, along with masterfully employed light (especially the depictions of fire) to bring to life the little grey wolf of the lullaby, the dancing couples torn apart by war, the bittersweet passage of time, and a good deal more. The music, combining original pieces with Mozart, Bach, and the aforementioned lullaby, along with some well-done sound effects, take the place of dialogue (although the version I watched includes some helpful annotations for international viewers). At times obscure, but by and large a lovely, charming, heartfelt work. Score: 90 – ****
- A Sense of History (1992) – This is actually, I believe, my third viewing of this fine short, directed by Mike Leigh but written by and starring Jim Broadbent as the 23rd Earl of Leete, who guides on a tour of his estate while narrating the story of his life, in which his zeal for preserving the family’s status led him to commit the most horrific crimes. It’s shot through with dark humor, Broadbent’s hilariously mannered performance matching his satirically pompous dialogue (the way he says “homosexual” is perfect), and gradually leavens its skewering of the landed gentry with a grim awareness of what a lonely, miserable man the 23rd Earl really is. Leigh’s direction is modest (it’s shot like a mockumentary) but fits the material neatly, as does Dick Pope’s cinematography; like the film as a whole, it’s dryly witty without pushing for effect. Score: 88 – ****
The Mummy (1932) – ***½
Of what I consider the “big five” Universal horror films, The Mummy is probably the least renowned and the most overshadowed by its direct descendants – for my generation, the 1999 film (which I need to rewatch) is The Mummy. It’s the last of the five I’ve actually seen, and I won’t argue that it’s the weakest, but that’s only in comparison to four stone-cold classics of American horror. The Mummy is still quite a good little film, clearly the seed for a whole genre, but a quieter, more thoughtful film than I was expecting.
In 1921, a British archeological expedition led by Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron) discovers the mummy of Imhotep, a high priest in ancient Egypt who was buried alive without the customary protective charms. A container is also found, whose lid threatens death on those who open it, and Whemple’s colleague Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan) warns against doing so. But Whemple’s assistant does so, reading a scroll he finds inside – a scroll we know to be the Scroll of Thoth, containing a spell which can resurrect the dead.
Sure enough, the mummy (Boris Karloff) comes to life, takes the scroll, and leaves; the assistant goes mad and dies in an asylum, leading Whemple to leave Egypt for good. But in 1932, his son Frank (David Manners) is taking part in another, less fruitful expedition, when a man named Ardeth Bey (Karloff) directs them to the tomb of Princess Anck-es-en-Amon, and Whemple returns to oversee the excavation and display of its contents at the Cairo Museum.
One night, Ardeth Bey contrives to stay in the museum past closing, and with the Scroll of Thoth attempts to resurrect Anck-es-en-Amon. At the same time, Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann), the British-Egyptian daughter of a British governor (and a patient of Dr. Muller), falls into a strange trance and comes to the museum, trying to enter before fainting into Frank’s arms. The Whemples take her to their home and summon Muller, while Ardeth Bey kills a museum guard who catches him.
It is revealed (if it wasn’t obvious) that Ardeth Bey is the resurrected Imhotep, that Helen is the reincarnated soul of Anck-es-en-Amon, and that Imhotep was buried alive for practicing forbidden magic in an attempt to save the original princess, who had died. He is prepared to erase all that is Helen and make her Anck-es-en-Amon once more, and he’s capable of using other dark spells to kill anyone who stands in his way. Therefore, Helen herself, drawing on her ancestral memories, must be the one to stop him.
It’s obvious how The Mummy draws upon the previous year’s Dracula, with the assistant who goes mad a parallel to Renfield, Muller a parallel to Van Helsing, Frank to John Harker, Helen to Mina Seward, and the refined Ardeth Bey not so different from the Count himself. In a reversal, the notion that Helen is the reincarnation of Anck-es-en-Amon could certainly have influenced the notion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula that Mina Murray is the reincarnation of Vlad the Impaler’s wife Elisabeta – and like that Mina, Helen delivers herself from the villain’s clutches, albeit with less pathos and more Isis.
But if it lacks the iconographic force of Dracula, The Mummy has ample virtues of its own. It’s interesting how little we see of the classic bandage-wrapped mummy here, with the focus instead being on the subtly cadaverous Ardeth Bey, who can subdue his foes and entrance his victims with a glowing glower. Karloff, here free to use his own grave voice, plays the role with gentle menace and a touch of humanity – he is motivated by love, after all, he’s just willing to do monstrous things to get it. Of course, we expect nothing less from “Karloff the uncanny.”
What we might not expect is for the object of his love to be so dynamic. Helen, and Johann’s performance, give the film a liveliness, a distinctly pre-Code spirit that contrasts with the ancient attitudes Ardeth Bey has preserved all the thousands of years. She’s smart, funny, and self-aware, quite ready to match wits with Frank, who falls in love with her almost instantaneously; she quips “Don’t you think I’ve had enough excitement for one evening, without the additional thrill of a strange man making love to me?” but is happy to fall into his embrace moments later.
She naturally overshadows the affably bland Frank, but Manners plays him at the right pitch; he never tries to make Frank more than the upper-class twit he is, albeit a comparatively likable one. Byron, on the other hand, is rather stiff and awkward as Whemple, but Van Sloan steps in, especially after Whemple is dispatched, to fill the wise-mentor role, which he naturally does well.
John L. Balderston’s script is uneven, with some rather good character scenes and some rather dodgy internal magic; Imhotep’s powers seem more driven by the needs of the story than any established system. Likewise, Karl Freund’s direction is at times meditatively moody and atmospheric, and other times a bit static and sluggish. He was better known as a cinematographer, and between the film’s handsome imagery (there’s a crane shot in one scene that’s especially impressive) and the sporadically poky pacing, you can tell. But he does a solid job.
And there’s certainly no faulting Jack Pierce’s makeup; we all recognize the reawakened Imhotep, but it’s Ardeth Bey, with his shriveled skin and sunken cheeks, who dominates the film. Nor can one fault the sets, which do a pretty damn good job of convincing us that the Universal lot is actually Cairo, or that the California desert is that of Egypt. Add to that a comparatively nuanced take on the subject of archeological colonialism, and you’ve got a film which still holds its own pretty well after 90 years.
Score: 84
If You Want the Gravy... 
2 Comments Add yours