The Trouble With Angels (1966)

"I think I'm gonna kill myself." "Catholics aren't allowed to."

Director
Ida Lupino

Cast
Rosalind Russell - Mother Superior
Mary Clancy - Hayley Mills
June Harding - Rachel Devery
Marge Redmond - Sister Liguori
Barbara Hunter - Marvel-Ann

I'm dedicating this post to my truly better half, my wife Andrea, and her highly commendable taste in movies! I whole heartedly believe she was brought up with a much classier taste in films than my own.
I like what I like. But my wife has introduced me to some true classics as well as notable films - ones that I would have otherwise overlooked or just not taking any interest in on my own. There are a number of movies falling into this category, and one of those is the 1966 comedy The Trouble with Angels.
I first watched this movie with Andrea about eight years ago while we were dating. And then I watched it again last night at my lovely wife's request. I noticed much more after my second viewing.  
This movie certainly isn't obscure. And I came to a better understanding about the story while watching it for the second time. 
The movie opens as new students arrive to St. Francis Academy girls boarding school run by a religious order of Catholic sisters. 
Among these new students are Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills) and Rachel Devery (June Harding), who meet on the train heading to the station where the bus is scheduled to pick them up. 

They quickly become as thick as thieves, as they make it a point to get away with as much as they can without getting caught. 
The head of the Academy is the order's Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) who runs a tight, respectable school while leaving some room for understanding.
The story follows Mary and Rachel through their academic years at the school, while pulling pranks on the nuns and consistently getting in trouble. 
Mary obviously doesn't care much for authority, and can't figure out why any woman with an ounce of self respect and taste for life would want to be a nun. Rachel follows suit, of course. 
Talk is cheap when it comes to Mother Superior's lessons. As the school years roll by, Mary watches the examples of the sisters' selflessness, charity, compassion, guidance. She also gains an understanding on the necessity of rules. Mother Superior watches Mary's knack of observation and doesn't interfere.
On graduation day, Mary makes a decision that leaves Rachel in shock and dismay. 

June Harding, Hayley Mills, and Rosalind Russell.

With its innocent comedy centered on a Catholic girls boarding school, and Hayley Mills in the central role, I initially thought this was a Disney movie. After all, Mills starred in some iconic Disney films in the 1960s such as Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, The Moon-Spinners, and That Darn Cat!
What makes the comedy stand out is the genuine approach to the relationship between Mary and the Mother Superior. 
At first, to Mary, the Mother Superior is just an authority figure stamped from the same press all other authority figures come from. 

Mary discovers this authority figure, who can be staunch and strict, also has emotions and is affected by her students just as much as the students are affected by her.  
But to the Mother Superior, Mary, though a cross to bear with the constant jokes and trouble making (trouble such as smoking cigars in the basement producing enough smoke to fool one of the other sisters to call the fire department, or attempting to skip swimming lessons for their entire time at St. Francis's Academy) she sees a child who not only deserves consequences for her actions, but also deserves understanding and empathy. 
Rather than chalking Mary and Rachel up to just being "bad kids," the Mother Superior learns where they're coming from. She doesn't deal with them because she has to. Rather, she wants them around regardless. 

She'll reprimand when the time calls for it. During the rest of the time, she leads by example rather than preaching. 
The comedy may be a bit dated at times, but as Russell once put it, "it's the sort of movie you can take the kiddies to and which isn't pure corn."
I still laughed at some of the jokes and remarks between the young and progressive-ish school girls, and the traditional Mother Superior.
The storyline is still enjoyable and relatable even for anyone who's been through Catholic schools. The Trouble With Angels is based on a book called Life With Mother Superior by Jane Trahey in which she details her experiences attending a Catholic School in the Chicago area. 

You just haven't lived until you've spent time in a Catholic school. For me, it was a boys boarding school. Who am I trying to fool? You probably have lived if you've never attended a Catholic school!

Hayley Mills, June Harding, and Rosalind Russell work so well off each other as their characters develop through the story, semester by semester. Their chemistry on the screen still holds up. 
The film manages to keep a steady pace without going overboard with ridiculous comedy and repetition. Nor does it fall into painful predictability. I mean, obviously the girls are going to get caught in their misdeeds. There's enough human element to give the story life so it doesn't become stagnant and, again, repetitive.  
Joy can be found in places you'd never think of looking. This movie certainly makes that clear.

The 1968 sequel, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows is, in short, a boring waste of time. But that's another post for another day...maybe.

Stay Tuned (1992)

"They say the average American watches 7.5 hours of T.V. a day. If that's true, there are two guys who never watch, and my dad took their times." 

Director

Peter Hyams

Cast

John Ritter - Roy Knable

Pam Dawber - Helen Knable

Jeffrey Jones - Spike

David Tomb - Darryl Knable

Heather McComb - Diane Knable

Eugene Levy - Crowley

Among the cinematic comedy corridors of the late 1980s through 1990s, some movies are fondly remembered more than others. Some movies obtain a "cult following" - groups of passionate fans dedicated to a body of work despite how poor or unpopular that work generally is. And other movies are just remembered because a few happened to catch it in theaters upon its release, or saw it on T.V. once. These latter titles stay in people's collective memories as "that one thing with that one guy I remember seeing." 
Stay Tuned is definitely in the latter. I saw this in the theater when it came out. And between 1992, to watching it last night, I only remembered John Ritter and the film's Wayne's World spoof. 
In the movie, John Ritter plays salesman Roy Knable who struggles at his job during the day only to plant himself in front of the TV at night and tune out the rest of the world.

His wife, Helen (Pam Dawber) feels Roy is neglecting his family as she wants to plan a getaway with just the two of them. They both have a fight, and Helen throws a trophy into Roy's T.V. set. 

Still, he uses the broken set as a stand for a small T.V. he keeps upstairs. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Spike (Jeffrey Jones), a TV. salesman straight from hell, appears at Roy's front door with a special offer - a brand new T.V. and satellite which will provide the Knable house 666 channels to choose from. 

While Roy isn't interested at first, Mr. Spike offers him a free trial, and offer Roy can't refuse. 

Spike sets up a large screen T.V. in Roy's living room, and a satellite dish in the backyard.   

Roy is anxious to see what this new setup has to offer, and finds the programs are Hell-ish, satirically evil versions of familiar programs and movies. 

When Pam sees the new television and satellite, she starts packing and attempts to leave. 

But when the argument finds its way into the backyard, Pam and Roy get sucked into the satellite dish, and end up in Hell's T.V. lineup. 

We see Spike and others running Hell's cable network monitoring souls stuck in the programs as he tells a new employee that souls have 24-hours to survive programming before they can return to earth. Otherwise, they're in eternity for...eternity. 

Their son Darryl (David Tom) soon discovers what happened to his parents as he finds them on T.V. He tries to convince his older sister, Diane (Heather McComb), that their parents are trapped in the television, but she obviously doesn't believe him.

After almost getting sucked into the satellite dish himself, it's clear to Darryl how they ended up inside the T.V.

As Diane is taking advantage of their parents absence by having friends over, it takes a while before she learns for herself where they went. 

And while Roy and Diane are trapped in the television, they jump from demonic-ish themed spoofs of Pro-wrestling, Northern Exposure, a cat and mouse cartoon animated by the legendary Chuck Jones, Wayne's World, a game show, and Driving Miss Daisy among other shows and movies.  

Meanwhile, Spike fires a network employee named Crowley (Eugene Levy) and sends him into the system.  

Pam Dawber and John Ritter

Crowley randomly bumps into Roy and Helen and helps them when he can to spite Mr. Spike for letting him go. Roy and Helen attempt to survive each deadly program after another hoping they'll make it out after 24-hours. 

It's only recently that I've started to appreciate the late John Ritter's comedy. He's the everyday guy who lets life happen to him when it does. And the small, perhaps unusual, circumstances and events he takes as normal and understood. He may not be hysterical, but his comedy makes me smile.

The comedy certainly makes this movie dated. I can't imagine anyone born after 1990 taking any interest in watching Stay Tuned. It's like a kid turning on one of those Bugs Bunny cartoons from the 1940s were celebrities of the era are caricaturized. Not too many children today watching such a cartoon would recognize Jack Benny, or Humphrey Bogart, or Harpo Marx. Still, you'll catch these cartoons at random still played on television, and they're still funny regardless.

Even the term "stay tuned" seems outdated as its not a staple of modern streaming services. That's certainly not a strike against the film, though. 
The beginning of the move is narrated by Darryl, which seems superfluous to me. The movie is all visual which makes it easy for the audience to figure out the premise rather quickly. We don't need a narrator.  
The emotional ties among the family are forced, and thrown in at what seems like the last minute in an attempt to add some depth. 
The movie depends primarily on the Hell themed spoofs of pop culture up to 1992. 

One scene in the movie that made me laugh pretty hard, Roy finds himself on the set of the sitcom Three's Company. John Ritter starred on the series as Jack Tripper from 1977 to 1984. So, when he lands in the middle of the show, he falls over the sofa as the show's opening theme song plays. As he stands up, the sitcom's characters Janet and Chrissy come through the front door and ask "where have you been?" 

Roy then screams at the camera before jumping to a new program. 

Still, the movie has a very nostalgic charm to it, and the comedy is there. The pace and variety certainly work in its favor, entertainment wise. It's unique for sure, though the 1989 comedy UHF is somewhat similar with spoofing pop culture  programs and movies via a television network.

Stay Tuned just puts a demonic spin to it.

For what it is, this movie works as it's obviously the satire it's selling to the audience. And it delivers. 

It tries to preach a lesson in how many hours the average American spends watching T.V. (today, that would be replaced with Social Media) which tears down social interactions. Here, Helen and Roy are forced to communicate and work as a team because of T.V. 

And for all practical purposes, the movie pulls off the lesson. It's not a hard lesson to teach. 

It's fun to watch, though the comedic visuals may fly over the heads of younger viewers. 

Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy (1968) - Comic to Movie #9

"Don't you agree with me that in some things the old fashioned ways are best after all?" 

Director 

Roger Vadim

Cast

Barbarella - Jane Fonda

Pygar the Angel - John Phillip Law

Anita Pallenberg - The Great Tyrant

Marcel Marceau - Prof. Ping

Milo O' Shea - Concierge 

It has been a month since I've posted a review. Life needed to be tended to. Vacations needed to be taken. Other things needed to be done. That's my excuse. 

But life for me is slowly getting back to normal (more or less.) My pursuit of watching obscure or not-so-widely discussed comic book based movies continues, among other reviews both here and on my horror blog www.1000daysofhorror.blogspot.com, with the 1968 science fiction fantasy (heavy emphasis on the word "fantasy" - the kind that would land a good ol' Catholic boy into the confessional) Barbarella. 

It's based on the French comic series by Jean-Claude Forest about a young woman who has a variety of adventures as she travels to different planets. 

Each adventure is laced in erotic overtones and sexual escapades in some form or another. And the movie definitely follows in style. 

In the movie, there's subtle and not-so-subtle imagery and innuendos from the beginning astronaut strip tease during the credits until the very last scene.

Though I haven't read the comic series, the movie is a fetish filled fantasy that I can only call a hallucinogenic driven far-out fever dream. 

Jane Fonda portrays Barbarella as an innocent yet determined damsel, wide-eyed, and surrounded by one perversion after another which, though resolute in her mission, she doesn't necessarily turn her back to. The style and atmosphere is unique, unforgettable, campy, cheap, colorful and again, sprinkled with innuendos. Barbarella is very much a movie of its late-1960s period. 

The movie takes place in an unspecified time in the future where Barbarella, an astro-navigator flying her own shag carpeted spaceship equipped with an A.I. computer and impressionist art work, is interrupted from her idyllic lifestyle by an urgent message from the President of Earth. 

He assigns her the task of searching for the villainous Dr. Durand Durand whose hungry like the wolf. (Just kidding. See what I did there?) 

I'll add that the British rock band Duran Duran took their name from Barbarella as they used to perform at an English night club called...you guessed it...Barbarella's.   

Anyways, Dr. Durand Durand has invented the positronic ray - a laser powered super weapon Earth leaders are scared is going to end up in enemy possession.

Barbarella takes on the mission, and travels to a realm called Tau Ceti's 16th planet. She crash lands, and discovers two young twin girls who take her to a group of other children by way of skis pulled by an octopus-looking creature along a frozen lake.

The group of children bind her up, and attack her with mechanical killer dolls bearing razor sharp metal teeth.

She's rescued by a catchman named Mark Hand who patrols the frozen areas looking for delinquent children. 

Barbarella asks Mark if he knows Durand Durand and he informs her the doctor is in a city called Sogo.

Grateful for Mark's help, Barbarella asks how she can repay him. And he blatantly asks if they can make love. He doesn't hesitate. Bold move, Mark. 

Jane Fonda as Barbarella.

In this futuristic earth, sex is no longer physical. Rather, couples take a pill to simulate sexual feelings together.

But Mark is old fashioned and Barbarella agrees to do it "the old fashioned way." So, they do, and after she believes pills are no longer as good as the real thing. 

When all is said and done, she takes off for Sogo where she again crash lands. 

Sogo is a labyrinth city whose residents are made up of outcasts and rejects from other parts of the galaxy.

In her quest to find Durand Durand, Barbarella meets a blind angel named Pygar (John Phillip Law) who doesn't know the doctor. Instead he takes her to meet Prof. Ping (Marcel Marceau) who repairs her damaged ship. 

Ping also encourages her to search for Durand Durand in the main part of Sogo. 

She asks Pygar if he'll fly her there as he is an angel. However he can't fly despite having wings as his ability to fly depends upon his will power, which is diminished.

So, to bolster up his will power, Barbarella offers to have sex with him. One thing leads to another as it usually does in promiscuous situations like this, and he flies her to the main area of Sogo.

While there, both she and Pygar are captured by the "black queen", also called "the Great Tyrant of Sogo", and her crew.

To get away, the two enter a chamber where people go to die while experiencing the utmost pleasure they can physically feel.

Underneath the floor is a bubbling liquid called Matmos, which is collected living energy from evil thoughts and desires. It's used as Sogo's power source. 

But Barbarella and Pygar are captured by the concierge (Milo O' Shea) of the black queen. 

Pygar is mockingly crucified, and Barbarella is (I kid you not) placed in a glass cage and attacked by parakeets. Yes! Parakeets. Real ones, too. I don't know if I was supposed to laugh at this, but I did. Parakeets used as instruments of torture.

Anyways, she's rescued by the leader of an underground rebellion against Durand Durand. And this guy's name is (again, I kid you not) Dildano, played by David Hemmings.

Together, they find out who Durand Durand is, and along with the rescued Pygar, will fight to take him down. 

Barbarella may sound like some kind of porn adventure, but it barely falls short of being such a film despite the sexual promiscuity throughout. Sex is done behind closed doors and spaceships. And nudity is barely hidden. That's no defense, by the way. 

I couldn't look away from the movie. Not because of all the sexual subtleties, but because of the story and the psychedelic set pieces. To say this movie is trippy would be an understatement. 

It still manages to be incredible and imaginative despite its many low-budget effects. There were no slow moments. It flows at a rather steady pace.

The storyline is certainly not complex. And it's adventurous for sure. The effort went into the set work and most of the effects. Also, it's certainly very imaginative all while not leaving much to the audience's imagination thanks in large part to Jane Fonda being, well, Jane Fonda. 

The acting seems mundane and scripted. Even Jane Fonda seemed distant and uninterested many times through. She often seemed too intent on properly pronouncing the pseudo scientific lines.
Surely, audiences at the time were too turned on to care whether Fonda, scantily clad throughout, was convincing in her acting or not. 

The character Barbarella, both in the comic and in this movie, takes a lot of inspiration from Flash Gordon. But her creator took a lot more inspiration from international sex symbol Brigette Bardot. 

In fact, it was Bardot's former husband, Roger Vladim, who cast Jane Fonda in the starring role as Fonda was his wife at the time. 

Barbarella came out the same year the TV series Batman was in its final season. So, there is a similar tone and style with the series. But unlike Batman, this is definitely geared towards adults, just as the comic is. 

The movie's Producer Dino De Laurentiis's name is also attached to a later comic-based movie, Flash Gordon (1980) along with other well known movies. 

But it's no surprise Roger Vadim sat in the director's chair has his name is also found among sensual sounding titles such as The Hot Touch, Night Games, and Pretty Maids All in a Row. 

Barbarella is certainly unique in its place among other comic based movies, even today. Of course, part of that is due to its being a product of its decade.

There's something to see in every scene, and I say that despite my comment sounding like a euphemism. 

For comic enthusiasts, it would be something to watch simply for its uniqueness in style. Otherwise, its just a mere psychedelic space trip frat boys or a bachelor party would enjoy more than general audiences.