Blood Island Journal # 3: Mad Doctor of Blood Island (Gerado de Leon & Eddie Romero, 1969)

Back on Blood Island a year or so after all that business with the sludge monster and the sacrificial virgins, and things actually seem to have changed quite a bit for this non-continuous quasi-sequel.

For one thing, the island itself seems a bit more developed than it was the last time around. The islanders now enjoy the benefit of some paved roads, a pony and trap and at least one electric generator. Sadly, there are far fewer totem poles, but the main village now boasts a “government house”, whatever that is.

For another thing, the outrageous colour palette of the previous picture has been toned down, with the exotica / tiki bar vibes scaled back slightly (perhaps to a “7”, down from “10”), lending a marginally more naturalistic feel to proceedings that reflects the film’s curiously morose, down-beat emotional timbre. Despite the promise of that irresistible title (what’s the matter doc, Market Street not good enough for ya anymore?), it looks as if shit’s about to get real on the ol’ Isla de Sangre.

Which, I must confess, is a development that is not entirely to my liking. Watching ‘Mad Doctor..’ for the first time, I found myself missing the goofy charm and over-saturated excesses of ‘Brides..’. Though a “dark and brooding” approach can often work well for Filipino horror (look no further than Terror is a Man for a perfect example), I have my doubts re: how far it can really go when it comes to distracting our attention from the meandering pacing and slapdash production values inherent to these late ‘60s Hemisphere horrors.

Thankfully however, Romero and de Leon at least came up with a fool-proof strategy to help keep the mid-west drive-in crowds in their seats – namely, cranking up the gore and sleaze to what at the time must have seemed fairly preposterous levels.

This intent is clearly signalled by one of the most attention-grabbing pre-credits sequences this side of Jose Larraz’s ‘Vampyres’, in which we see an anonymous, stark naked Filipino girl fleeing through the (rather scrubby looking) jungle, before getting bloodily mauled by a hairy-handed green zombie / monster. Yikes!

Following this unambiguous statement of intent (surely the exploitation movie equivalent of a hand-on-heart oath of allegiance?) however, we’re soon back to the grind of PLOT and TALKING, as a new shipment of outsiders approach the torrid coast of Blood Island – but hey, at least a wealth of “so, why are we going to this island again?” type expository chat allows us to clearly establish who’s who this time around.

This is just as well, because, as seems to have become a trademark of Eddie Romero’s films in particular, ‘Mad Doctor of Blood Island’ has, frankly, too many characters.

Shipping in on the boat, we firstly have an American couple (John Ashley and Angelique Pettyjohn) who have come in search of Angelique’s estranged father. I’m not sure if the reasoning behind the father’s presence on Blood Island is ever made clear, but he seems rather like one of those “trading company agent” type characters found in colonial-era South Seas tales. He’s certainly a sweat-drenched, alcoholic misanthrope who seems to have been driven mad by the malarial climate, at any rate.

Played by one Tony Edmunds (in his only screen role), he initially rejects the opportunity to re-establish a relationship with his daughter (presumably because it would upset his busy schedule of sprawling around in a state of fever-ish dissolution). (1)

Also on the boat is an alternative Filipino protagonist, Carlo, played by Ronaldo Valdez. Having been raised on the island, he is heading back there to track down his mother (played by veteran Pinoy character actress Tita Muñoz), after receiving the news that his father has died. *She* seems be ensconced as the live-in servant and lover of one Dr Lorca (Ronald Remy, star of Hemisphere’s earlier ‘The Blood Drinkers’ (1964)).

As you might well imagine, this guy is the “Mad Doctor” of the title, although disappointingly he never really gets very “mad” here, in the usual horror movie sense of the term. In fact, he remains disconcertingly chilled out through most of picture, regarding the assorted hullaballoo caused by his errant experiments with a sense of expressionless neutrality. Whether Remy was heroically resisting the urge to over-act (going instead for “cold scientific distance”), or simply lacked the necessary charisma for the role, is largely a moot point however, and will likely depend on your level of sympathy for the production.

In addition this lot meanwhile, we also have another significant character, Marla (Alicia Alonzo), an island girl who seems like a twisted and vengeful variation of the upstanding Alam from ‘Brides..’. A childhood playmate of Carlo, she now seems fixated both on seducing him, and on taking revenge against Dr Lorca for the death of her lover, Carlo's late father.

So, yes – if you’re thinking that this seems like an awful lot of human drama to try to cram into a movie that is basically being sold on the promise of seeing naked girls being torn apart by a slimy green monster, you have a point.

Some commentators have suggested that the introduction of a parallel storyline involving Filipino characters could have been an attempt to broaden the film’s appeal for local audiences, but actually this seems doubtful. ‘Mad Doctor..’, like its predecessors, was shot in English, with the majority of funds coming from overseas, and - insofar as I’m aware – the possibility of a theatrical release in The Philippines was never even considered.

Nonetheless, it’s certainly nice to see that the filmmakers were confident enough by this stage to devote a significant portion of screen time to characters of their own nationality, and it is interesting to note that this coincides with the introduction of a more pervasive sense of melancholy than was present in the old fashioned, “white folks getting into trouble in the jungle” tales that characterised the preceding Blood Island films.

For all the monsters and bloodthirsty japes, just about everyone in ‘Mad Doctor..’ is basically deeply unhappy, with most of the characters struggling with grief or loss in one form or another. The arched eyebrow “humour” that dominated dialogue exchanges in ‘Brides..’ has largely vanished, whilst the Carlo / Dr Lorca storyline incorporates a queasy undertone of incestuous desire which culminates in a handful of uncomfortably harrowing, taboo-skirting scenes in the film’s final act

If all this sounds pretty intriguing on paper however, I wish I could report that it was a bit more enjoyable on celluloid. Unfortunately, the means by which Romero and de Leon choose to unpack these complex character relationships – think long stretches of bland, monotone dialogue and repetitive shot / reverse shot editing patterns – soon poses a challenge both to viewers’ attention spans, and potentially their very wakefulness.

Never fear though, because the monster is here, and, if he’s not even remotely as much fun as ‘Brides of Blood’s world-beating sludge-beast, he certainly scores a few points in terms of sheer unpleasantness.

This time around, the film’s wacky, quasi-scientific premise involves Dr Lorca’s technique for reviving / extending animal life through the direct injection of chlorophyll - which results, inevitably, in the creation of one or more shambling, psychopathic moss-zombies.

Half-man, half-cactus, is the general idea here I suppose, and, though fairly laughable from a make-up POV, the green paint-splattered, paper-mache headed menace that periodically emerges to terrorise Blood Island nonetheless has a genuinely icky feel to it that puts me in mind of the muesli-faced fiends found in second string Italian zombie movies of the early 1980s. This comparison remains pertinent with regard to what the creature actually does too; boy, he sure goes for it!

Succumbing to the temptations of the cartoonish, full strength gore approach inaugurated earlier in the decade by Herschell Gordon Lewis, de Leon and Romero cheerfully employ a range of special effects that make Lewis seem like a champion of gritty surgical realism by comparison, transforming ‘Mad Doctor..’s monster attack scenes into a ludicrous rampage of flying mannequin limbs, screaming, blood-splattered naked people and shock zooms into piles of steaming entrails, sure to leave any seasoned connoisseur of trash cinema beside themselves with delight.

Considerably less delightful for most viewers however will be the rather unique “in-camera effect” that is utilised throughout the film’s horror sequences. Basically, this consists of the camera operator relentlessly cranking the zoom function in and out again, in time with some pulsing rhythm of his own devising, much in the manner of a child fooling around with a video camera for the first time at a family picnic.

Personally, I found this gimmick absolutely infuriating. It makes many of the film’s livelier scenes feel disorientating and difficult to follow, and some potentially great visuals are ruined forever by the murky motion blurring which results. Individual tolerance may vary however, and I can at least appreciate the fact that enjoyment of this technique is largely a matter of context.

Say what you will about the folks behind Hemisphere, but they certainly knew their market, and I can well imagine that, in a Saturday afternoon matinee full of screaming kids, having this pulsating, zoom-y weirdness kick in whenever the monster is nearby must have proved very effective. For your humble correspondent however, sitting alone beside the blu-ray player half a century later in earnest contemplation of a cinematic text (god help me)… not so much. (2)

Unfortunately, a further – significant - obstacle for most 21st century viewers attempting to enjoy ‘Mad Doctor of Blood Island’ hoves into view about halfway through, when the filmmakers decide to include a short, but still extremely unpleasant, display of real life animal cruelty.

Regrettably, the ill treatment of animals is an aspect of Filipino culture that can often be seen creeping into the nation’s genre cinema, but there can be no cultural justification for the reprehensible conduct we see here, as some unfortunate pigs and goats are tied down and stabbed as part of a staged “tribal ritual”.

Thankfully, this footage is mercifully brief (comprising only a few seconds of screen time), but it’s still pretty difficult to stomach, so – viewer discretion (and/or a speedy hand on the remote control) is advised.

Moving swiftly on however, ‘Mad Doctor..’s non-zoom-damaged, non-animal slaughtering segments can at least boast a few other attractions that may (or may not) make the whole thing worth ploughing through, including, but not limited to:

1. Loads of lascivious, erotic dancing from the island’s more shapely young residents (I suppose the extended dance party finale of ‘Brides of Blood’ must have gone down well with audiences).

2. The spiriting sight of the gum-chewing, slightly Southern accented John Ashley unleashing some gone-to-seed white guy kung fu as he scatters spear-wielding guards like nine-pins, as well as rocking an incongruous powder blue suit and wing-tip collar to complement his kiss-curled, Ricky Nelson-type looks.

3. The unique presence of Angelique Pettyjohn, an unconventional leading lady whose emergence from bed when disturbed by a moss-zombie banging at her door (a scene coincidentally blessed with some splendid, Bava-esque gel lighting) must have lingered long in many adolescent imaginations. Gamely gallivanting around Blood Island in a frilly pink mini-dress being menaced by zombies, snakes, surly tribesmen and the like (Tito Arevalo’s bombastic scoring gives equal weight to all of these potential threats), she’s a great screamer who leads me to want to use the word “lascivious” twice in the space of a few paragraphs. (3)

Having got that out of the way, I’d like to move things on to a brief discussion of this film’s assorted promotional ballyhoo – chiefly dreamed up by Hemisphere marketing consultant and later Independent International Pictures mogul Sam Sherman – which is a lot of fun, and must have played a significant role in ensuring that ‘Mad Doctor of Blood Island’ remains probably the most infamous and fondly remembered of the “blood island” films, despite being arguably the weakest instalment in the series, in purely cinematic terms.

Shot on spec by Romero using Caucasian teenagers apparently rounded up from the domestic quarter of the nearest U.S. military base, the film’s “green blood” prologue, in which patrons are encouraged to drink whatever hideous fluorescent potion the distributors managed to hand out whilst reciting the “Oath of Green Blood” is an absolute hoot, whilst the film’s demented trailer – inexplicably featuring a voiceover performed by legendary underground theatre performer and New York eccentric Brother Theodore – is an absolute classic too.

For all this attention-grabbing tomfoolery however, ‘Mad Doctor..’ for the most part remains a rather grim, potentially headache-inducing trudge of a viewing experience. Despite the polystyrene walled dungeon finale and occasional moments of classical gothic atmos in fact, the film in retrospect seems interesting for the way in which it moves beyond the campy, ‘40s-derived template that still defined most low budget horror films of the late ‘60s.

Instead, the dour pessimism and envelope-pushing content lurking behind the garish marketing materials makes the feel – at a push - somewhat more like a precursor to the more explicit and downbeat horror films that would begin to emerge from both Europe and the USA during the 1970s. Certainly, if the purpose of a horror film is to be horrible, ‘Mad Doctor of Blood Island’ succeeds about as well its production circumstance could have allowed, providing enough unsavoury content to warp the minds of monster kids and morality campaigners alike. Apparently it managed to fly under the radar of the latter group however, and must have proved sufficiently popular with the former that Dr Lorca returned, less than a year later, in ‘Beast of Blood’. Sanity allowing, I’ll be landing once again on the golden sands of Blood Island soon to bring you the low down on that one. God help us all.

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(1) As an aside, I found it interesting that the “alcoholic dad” character is identified by the islanders as “Mr. Willard” – presumably a nod to Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, which is curious, given that both Eddie Romero and John Ashley worked behind the scenes on the Filipino shoot for ‘Apocalypse Now’ a few years later.

(2) Yes, in case you were wondering, anecdotal evidence suggests that these movies were regularly screened to pre-teen crowds throughout the USA, with any trims for gore and nudity presumably at the mercy of the theatre manager’s scissors. What a great time to have been alive!

(3) At this point, I think we are duty-bound to mention Pettyjohn’s later claim that she and John Ashley were doing the deed for real during their brief love scene in ‘Mad Doctor..’. Though naturally nothing to support this assertion survives on screen, it’s certainly a pretty steamy sequence, and, given that Pettyjohn went on to become one of the few ‘legitimate’ actresses to move into hardcore porn during the ‘70s whilst Ashley is widely remembered as an irrepressible horndog, such shenanigans don’t seem entirely beyond the realm of possibility.

Exploito All’Italiana: Roma Violenta (Marino Girolami, 1975)

Released in the USA under the name ‘Violent City’ (but definitely not to be confused with the 1970 Sergio Sollima / Charles Bronson joint of the same name), ‘Roma Violenta’ (no translation needed, I’m assuming) represents the Italian poliziotteschi at its most reactionary and utilitarian, boiling the right wing fantasies of ‘Dirty Harry’ and ‘Death Wish’ down to a sticky, unpalatable paste, and serving it up with a skimpy garnish of cut price action and lurid sadism.

The film is historically significant however for introducing the world to Euro-Crime icon Maurizio Merli, and to his signature character Commissario Betti – an expressionless, blonde moustached human torpedo on a one-man mission to crack the skull and/or puncture the lungs of every small-time hood who dares set foot in one of Italy’s major metropolitan areas.

Generally assumed to have been cast as a result of his passing resemblance to Franco Nero, who had recently had recently scored big at the box office playing crusading cops in Enzo Castellari’s ‘High Crime’ (1973) and ‘Street Law’ (’74), Merli’s dead-eyed, suspect-pulverizing persona must have proved popular with audiences, as he went on to reprise the Betti character in both Umberto Lenzi’s ‘Napoli Violenta’ and Girolami’s ‘Italia a Mano Armata’ [export title ‘Special Cop in Action’] the following year, before essaying a series of similarly two-fisted Inspectors and Commissarios in films for Lenzi, Stelvio Massi and other directors throughout the late ‘70s.

An entirely generic distillation of everything you might expect of one of these movies, ‘Roma Violenta’ begins the only way it could, with a bunch of gun-toting, stocking-masked punks hi-jacking a city bus and stealing valuables from the passengers. Of course, it all goes wrong, and of course an innocent bystander (a seventeen year old boy – guaranteed to elicit maximum hand-wringing from proponents of the poliziotteschi’s none-more-macho mindset) is callously gunned down. A promising life, senselessly wasted! Is Commissario Betti going to stand for this? Hell no!

In between blustering through the offices of his uncaring, desk-jockey superiors, angrily demanding more men and more money for his ‘special squad’ to combat this intolerable crime wave, Merli is soon on the trail of the bus robbery’s perpetrators, thus treating us to an explanatory demonstration of his no nonsense approach to police-work.

This basically consists of Betti meeting with his top undercover man Biondi (played an impossibly youthful-looking Ray Lovelock), who tells him, “it was that guy over there”, prompting our hero to trap said guy in an empty bus (irony, ‘Roma Violenta’ style) and beat the living shit out of him (information gathering, ‘Roma Violenta’ style).

Already, the film’s political stance has been taken to such a comical extreme that for a moment I almost suspected it had crossed the line into a Judge Dredd style parody of fascistic law enforcement. Certainly, as Merli beats this unarmed youth to verge of death whilst demanding he “confess”, it is difficult for our sympathies to remain fully on the right side of the law… but then, I’m bleeding heart, liberal do-gooder, so what the hell do I know?

Perhaps in order to off-set this potential drift of audience sympathy, ‘Roma Violenta’ is notable for its failure (or refusal?) to in any way engage with the lives and activities of its criminal antagonists. Surprisingly, there is no suggestion at any point in the film that the teen hoods and low rent villains Betti combats are connected to an organised crime network or criminal syndicate, and, disappointingly, there are no cigar-chewing, Lionel Stander Mafiosi, twisted, Tomas Milian-style psychopaths or calculating John Saxon overseers to liven things up either.

Though some solid performers (John Steiner and the ubiquitous Luciano Rossi, for example) are on hand to play the more experienced crooks, none of them are ever given the chance to develop much of a personality, and for the most part the film’s baddies remain nameless, gun-toting young hooligans, whose criminal ambitions are limited to opportunistic hit-and-run attacks and the occasional, poorly planned armed robbery. All of which rather makes a mockery of Belli’s repeated insistence that he needs greater resources and special legal dispensation to fight this existential threat to law & order, needless to say.

Under such circumstances, even the most brutal of crime films would normally at least pay lip service to the social inequalities that might lead young people to embark on such crime sprees, but no dice here. In classic Michael Winner tradition, these punks come out of nowhere like goblins, depriving the well-to-do of their gold watches and man-handling their women, before scampering off again, leaving blood and bodies in their wake.

Having noted during the opening credits that the great Richard Conte appears in ‘Roma Violenta’, I could barely wait to see him pop up as a suave, sadistic mob boss (a stereotype he’d gleefully perfected over the years in everything from ‘The Big Combo’ (1955) to Fernando Di Leo’s ‘Il Boss’ (1973)), but again, the film defies our expectations by casting Conte as a good guy - namely, one “Mr Sartori”, a campaigning lawyer who invites Betti to join his freelance vigilante justice group after our man (inevitably) quits the police force in disgust.

Now, in any other crime movie, when a venerable Italian-American character actor invites our protagonist to shake hands with a group of men who are lined up in what appears to be a meat locker, and distributes glossy photos of some people he wishes them to track down and hospitalise… well, we might reasonably expect our hero to contemplate the possibility that his strict moral code has been somewhat compromised. But, as we have established, ‘Roma Violenta’ is a movie of very little brain, and Mr Sartori’s earnest dedication to the pursuit of justice is never questioned.

Instead, he very nearly finds himself becoming one of the film’s several vengeance-justifying sacrificial victims, when a gang of particularly scruffy-looking villains invade his home and hold him at knife-point. It is at this point that Mr Sartori’s previously unmentioned daughter descends the stairs, and the uncredited actress playing her gets to enjoy a full three seconds of screen time before – you guessed it – she is stripped naked and raped by the thugs.

A drearily nasty business, replete with cynically opportunistic frontal nudity, this sequence gains a touch of class from Conte’s appalled reaction shots; a real pro, even when working in such reduced circumstances, he sells his character’s wide-eyed horror very well.

Predictably, this treatment is about par for the course for female characters in ‘Roma Violenta’. There are a few brief scenes in which Merli goes to visit his girlfriend (played by Euro-cult regular Daniela Giordano), who appears to manage a hotel, but this has no connection with anything else that happens in the film, and basically feel as if it has been tacked on solely in order to establish that Betti is in a monogamous relationship with a woman - lest the audience suspect that he might actually be some kind of weirdo, vis-a-vis his “lone wolf” lifestyle and apparent enthusiasm for inflicting sadistic beatings upon younger men.

Nameless Girlfriend aside however, I’m not sure there is a single woman this movie who gets to speak more than a single line of dialogue before being arbitrarily murdered or assaulted…. which I’ll admit puts me in a bit of a critical quandary. After all, if I’m to continue to defend Sam Peckinpah’s ‘The Wild Bunch’ or Kinji Fukasaku’s yakuza films against accusations of misogyny, citing the argument that they are merely portraying (rather than endorsing) a hyper-masculine world in which women are forcibly denied a voice, surely I should do ‘Roma Violenta’ the same courtesy...?

As much as I hate to recognise distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ cinematic culture though, at some point I suppose you’ve just got to draw a line in the sand and – in this case - declare that Peckinpah and Fukasaku made critically-engaged, emotionally-nuanced films which can (at a stretch) be read as implicit critiques of the kind of toxic machismo they specialised in portraying. Marino Girolami on the other hand…

Well -- I don’t know. For all that I’ve torn it apart above, I don’t want to come down too hard on ‘Roma Violenta’. As egregious and simple-minded as its content may sound in the abstract, the actual execution here is so pulpy and paper-thin that it is impossible to really take offense.

As with his other Euro-Cult calling card (1981’s hugely entertaining Zombi Holocaust), Girolami essentially directs here as if he were pasting together a cheap fumetti comic book, banging through scenes in a rough, first-take-best-take manner that, whilst it rarely crosses the line into actual incompetence, suggests an attempt to wring maximum impact from a bare minimum of effort.

Wasting no time on such niceties as character, narrative depth or visual interest, Girolami comes down hard on the pacing, producing a movie that – whilst it scarcely contains a single line of dialogue that doesn’t feel like a perfunctory reiteration of genre cliché – is rarely dull, remaining eminently watchable, and indeed rather likeable, in an “after a few beers” kind of way.

The film’s overall highlights are probably the moments in which robberies and assaults are staged on crowded city streets, complete with gawping by-standers and barely choreographed chaos, including a hilarious skit in which some purse-snatchers get their asses kicked by an undercover police karate expert, made up in drag as an old lady.

Merli’s numerous beat downs meanwhile are creditably staged, complete with quick edits and bone-crunching sound effects that could have come straight from a slightly sluggish kung fu movie, and, though comically under-cranked, the obligatory car chase also packs a punch, hitting all the necessary poliziotteschi pleasure points, as a bunch of those tiny ‘70s Italian cars we all love so much roar precariously around an unfinished motorway flyover, allowing Girolami to make the most of his minimal resources, cannily switching back and forth between overhead shots and ‘bumper-cam’ for a touch of proto-‘Mad Max’ excitement.

By far the best thing ‘Roma Violenta’ has going for it though is the music, which comes courtesy of producer Guido de Angelis, working as usual in collaboration with his brother Maurizio. And, the de Angelis boys are really on top form here too, working out a kind of propulsive, disco-influenced progressive rock sound with a strong melancholy undertone provided by some poignant lead playing on keyboard, flute and harmonica. As exemplified by compilation staple New Special Squad, it’s a stone-cold classic of ‘70s cop movie music, and comes highly recommended.

And…. that’s about all I have to say about ‘Roma Violenta’, to honest. It may not be one of the better poliziotteschi pictures, but, if you can turn off your brain (and your conscience), stop asking questions, and simply revel in the surfeit of ‘70s Cop Vibes it provides (mm, all that fuzzy, nicotine-stained brown), it’s a pleasantly psychotic timewaster.

I do wonder what Girolami thought about the fact that, whilst he was treading water on stuff like this, his own son (the aforementioned Enzo G. Castellari) was busy outclassing him with a series of vastly more accomplished additions to the genre, hitting his peak the following year with one of my all-time favourite European action/crime films, ‘The Big Racket’, but…. that’s another story, I suppose. For now, let’s knock this one on the head and hopefully we’ll get around to it one day.

Deathblog: Larry Cohen (1936-2019)

I’ve been a fan of Larry Cohen’s work for about as long as I can remember.

Ok, perhaps not quite that long, but certainly since I first acquired a DVD player at some point in the early 2000s, and made the then newly reissued ‘Q: The Winged Serpent’ (1982) one of my inaugural impulsive purchases in this exciting new format.

I mean, who wouldn’t? Just look at the damn thing.

Long story short, I fucking loved it. I still do. It’s one of my absolute favourite movies. To this day, I’ve rarely seen a film that dared to be so much better, so much more original, than the constraints of its genre, budgetary status and marketing materials lead the audience to expect. I mean, most filmmakers would probably have been content just to have created a down-on-the-street New York crime story so compelling that it could made for a respectable addition to the ‘Mean Streets’ / ‘Serpico’ canon in its own right; but to then amp it up with decapitated sunbathers, sinister Aztec cultists skinning people alive and David Carradine blasting a tommy gun in the face of stop motion god-monster on top of the Chrysler Building..? Good grief.

Whoever this Larry Cohen guy was (and his “WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY..” credit leaves little room for authorial ambiguity), I immediately knew he was on my wave length (or rather, I aspired to be on HIS wave length, I suppose).

Learning more about ‘Q’s production circumstances over the years, my admiration for what Cohen managed to achieve with it has only increased. Like all of his films, it basically just began with a good idea and a throw of the dice. (He always claimed that he launched the production in a fit of pique after being fired from an adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s ‘I, The Jury’, making initial calls to cast, crew and financial backers from his studio-booked hotel room and shooting the first footage for ‘Q’ the very next day.)

Looking back over Cohen’s filmography, it’s fair to say that this impulsive approach to movie-making – zero pre-production planning, total faith in on-set improvisation – was both his greatest strength and his Achilles’ heel. Sometimes he rolled a five, sometimes an eight, but on ‘Q’, he ended up with a double six staring back at him. Everything just comes together beautifully. Though fans of the equally extraordinary ‘God Told Me To’ (1976) could make a strong argument to the contrary, I still think it’s his masterpiece.

Cohen also claimed – in his characteristically entertaining audio commentary - that he met Michael Moriarty randomly, in a restaurant ferchristsake, immediately offered him a part in the film and began rewriting the script around him, resulting in what is almost certainly the best performance in either man’s career.

He also very nearly ended up in jail (surely only the intervention of friends in high places can possibly have kept him out of the cells) after causing a major security incident in New York City when – asking no one’s permission, as per usual – he had his people climb to the top of the Chrysler Building, hi-jack the hanging baskets used by steeplejacks carrying out renovation work, and start blasting away at an invisible monster with prop machine guns… whilst simultaneously stealing footage of the people on the streets below fleeing in panic!

Though Cohen perhaps never pulled off anything else quite so audacious / insane [delete as applicable], his best films of the ‘70s are full of similarly electrifying moments, in which the violent drama of the fictional narrative crashes headfirst into the real world, capturing the reactions of unsuspecting bystanders (see Andy Kaufman going crazy in the midst of the St Patrick’s Day parade in ‘God Told Me To’, or Fred Williamson staggering across Times Square with a bullet wound in ‘Black Caesar’(1973)). Although he seems to have largely curtailed these shenanigans from the mid ‘80s onward (perhaps considerations of safety and sanity began to win out), these outbursts of chaos are emblematic off the off kilter, anything-could-happen-next energy that defines the entirety of Cohen’s career.

Though he was still a young man when the ‘60s hit, Cohen never really seems to have embraced that decade’s counter-culture. In spite of the gonzo antics outlined above, he was never exactly what you’d call a rock n’ roll kinda guy. In fact, his aspirations early in life involved becoming a borsch-belt comedian or nightclub crooner, before unsolicited script submissions led him toward a career in network TV and, subsequently, independent filmmaking.

(All this is outlined, by the way, in Steve Mitchell’s 2017 documentary ‘King Cohen’, which I watched this week in preparation for writing this post; an excellent doc, and solid gold for anyone who enjoys listening to movie people talking – recommended.)

Despite this however, Cohen’s films and scripts are united by a rebellious spirit, and almost always manage to sneak in an element of pointed social criticism, hidden in plain sight beneath a thin veneer of commercial ballyhoo. Dealing candidly (sometimes furiously) with issues of societal inequality, race / gender / age discrimination and institutional corruption, his writing exhibits a near-obsessive distrust of authority, counselling profound suspicion of the motives of police and government, and frequently pitting unpredictable, potentially dangerous, outsiders against a hierarchy of ineffectual, morally tainted patriarchal figures.

These concerns are perhaps most immediately evident in Cohen’s directorial debut, ‘Bone’ (1970), an extraordinary and uncategorisable social satire which proved impossible to market at the time, and that remains sadly underappreciated to this day. (I reviewed it here as part of a Yaphet Kotto blogathon way back in 2010, though I can’t really vouch for the veracity of my writing or opinions at that time.)

Even more transgressive in their own way though are Cohen’s 1974 hit ‘It’s Alive’ and it’s two sequels – films whose outrageous, envelope-pushing subject matter allowed goofy, bad taste monster attack scenes to exist side by side with harrowing, elemental human drama, whilst also asking their audience to reflect on such startling sights as (in ‘It Lives Again’, 1978) an army of heavily armed riot police surrounding a hospital specifically for the purpose of killing a new born child, whilst a small band of dissidents try to smuggle the expectant mother into a mobile delivery room hidden in the back of a furniture truck. (Although, this being a Larry Cohen film of course, those dissidents prove to be pretty far from heroic themselves.)

Aside from anything else, the first ‘Alive’ film stands as a clear precursor to the work of both David Cronenberg and Frank Henenlotter, and its key scene - in which John Ryan sits in a hospital waiting room nervously anticipating the birth of his first child, only to instead see a nurse staggering through the door to the maternity ward with her throat torn out - remains one of the most jaw-dropping moments in all of ‘70s horror, created with little more than one good actor, one TV soap opera set and a few squirts of fake blood.

In all of the aforementioned films, there is something dangerous; something new and uncomfortable, giving voice to ideas not normally encountered in commercial genre cinema. Cohen’s persistent refusal to tow the usual line when it comes to deciding which characters are ‘good’, which are ‘bad’, and what should be done about whatever the status quo-upsetting threat under consideration happens to be, allows his work to remain provocative and unnerving to this day.

First and foremost I think, Cohen was a great writer. (This seems a good point at which to drop in mention of his voluminous screenwriting work, which included the creation of the ‘Maniac Cop’ franchise and the 2002 high concept thriller ‘Phone Booth’, amongst many others.)

One of the all-time great ‘high concept’ guys, most of Cohen’s scripts seem tailor made for a “give it to us in one sentence” pitch meeting, but he never failed to wring maximum dramatic value from his latest Crazy Idea, foregrounding character and consequence to give added weight to movies that could easily have become goofy timewasters. In an alternate universe – if he’d had lunch with Rod Sterling, or if he’d got to grips with prose - he could easily have slotted into the pantheon next to Richard Matheson, Theodore Sturgeon or Ray Bradbury.

When the films Cohen directed did fall down or emerge as merely average, it was the vagaries of the execution (variable performances, uninspired camera work, botched effects, wonky pacing or simply a lack of time/resources) that let them down. His ideas and his instincts were always on-point, and, given the seat-of-his-pants circumstances under which he worked, it’s remarkable that he rarely, if ever, came up snake eyes.

To date, I’ve never seen a Larry Cohen film that wasn’t worth watching at least once, but, having said that, his extended catalogue is pretty damn vast, considering his preference for outré subject matter and his constant battles with studios and distributers. I’ve been gradually trying to fill in the gaps for myself over the past few years, but, watching the aforementioned documentary served to remind me just how many titles I still have to go.

In ‘King Cohen’, you will hear Martin Scorsese speak eloquently about the importance of Cohen’s near forgotten 1977 FBI biopic ‘The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover’. You will learn that his 1987 Stephen King sequel ‘Return to Salem’s Lot’ featured an elderly Sam Fuller teaming up with Michael Moriarty to battle vampires (now THAT I’ve got to see), or that he gave Bette Davis her final movie role in an ill-fated comedy named ‘Wicked Stepmother’ (1989), introducing a ‘body swap’ element into the script in order to allow him to finish the film after health problems and bad feeling led Davis to bail before the completion of shooting.

And, that’s before we even mention his 1980 horror-comedy ‘Full Moon High’ (four years before ‘Teen Wolf’, folks), or ‘Original Gangstas’ (1996), the post-‘Boyz N The Hood’ gang warfare movie he made in collaboration with Fred Williamson, casting genuine gang members in Gary, Indiana.

One suspects that Cohen’s dice hand may finally have failed him on some of these lesser known oddities, but you know, he who dares etc… I look forward to catching up with them at some point.

What a wild rampage of a career. Though Cohen effectively retired from directing in the 21st century (his 2006 ‘Masters of Horror’ episode ‘Pick Me Up’ – a final collaboration with Moriarty - was the only exception), he continued to keep the wolf from the door by writing prolifically for films and TV (in particular, the success of ‘Phone Booth’ seems to have made him the go-to guy for phone-related DTV horror flicks, strangely enough) – but I’m really glad that Mitchell’s aforementioned documentary came through in time to top off his filmography with an appropriately heartfelt tribute to his achievements.

Of course, the summary I’ve banged out above barely begins to scratch the surface of a full life of creative endeavour. How many spec scripts did he sell over the years, only to see them disappear into the ether? And I’m sure that a devotee of ‘60s American TV could probably write an even longer obit post, running down his successes and innovations in that field.

However you approach his career though, Larry Cohen stands as a pioneering figure in the realm of self-sufficient, independent American cinema, a persistent thorn in the side of slick, studio conformity, and a relentless champion of a wilder, weirder, angrier voices within popular entertainment. He will be much missed.

Blood Island Journal # 2: Brides of Blood (Gerardo de Leon & Eddie Romero, 1968)

OBLIGATORY SCREENSHOT DISCLAIMER: As usual, I need to make clear that the screenshots above are sourced from an old DVD edition of this film, and NOT from the recent Severin blu-ray referred to in the text, which I can confirm looks a lot better.

I should also note that the footnotes in this review deal exclusively with background on the cast members, so please let this inform your decision re: whether or not you wish to scroll down to read ‘em.

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Coming to 1968’s ‘Brides of Blood’ straight off the back of Eddie Romero & Gerardo de Leon’s initial excursion into the realms of South Seas monsterism, 1959’s highly accomplished Terror is a Man, is a transition guaranteed to provoke a bad case a cinematic whiplash.

Whereas in ‘Terror..’, character beats and plot situations were simple, clearly outlined and anchored by a set of solid performances, the opening scene of ‘Brides..’ instead finds us thrown into a cramped ship’s cabin, where a bunch of guys – and one token ‘blonde bombshell’ (‘Miss Beverly Hills’, later known as Beverly Powers) – sit around a table, midway through a conversation that doesn’t really seem to make a whole lot of sense (the poor sound recording doesn’t help matters).

Who are they? What are they up to? With no proper introductions, the amount of time it takes us to figure out the answers to these questions is frankly pretty annoying. I know that we movie reviewers are traditionally supposed to be dismissive of “exposition”, but can I have some please?

There seems to be some kind of innuendo going on concerning the sexual inadequacy of the blonde’s husband, and her implied attraction to a husky, shirtless sailor who stands behind her. In a scene that has absolutely no connection to anything else that happens in the film, this sailor proceeds to take matters into his own hands by pushing the woman into a cabin and violently forcing himself upon her. Pretty rough stuff for any movie’s opening minutes, but don’t worry readers - it’s one of those movie rapes where she seems to be quite into it. Because she’s a slut, I suppose? That’s what we in the business call “characterisation”, folks! (1)

Welcome to the choppy waters of Blood Island. “Here comes the local rotary club,” sneers Beverley, apparently none the worse for her recent assault, as the “natives” parade from their huts to welcome our protagonists (whoever they are) as they disembark upon the golden shores of this torrid tropical paradise.

Welcoming the new arrivals to his hut, the village’s dignified headman (played by Andres Centenera, who has a great face for horror movies) tells his guests that he is happy to see them, but wishes they could have visited a few months earlier, because unspecified events have recently caused his people to “return to primitive ways”, for which he feels great shame. (Speaking as someone with a spare bedroom, I know how he feels.)

The headman does not expand upon this unsettling line of chat, but he does introduce us to his comely granddaughter Alam (Eva Darren), who speaks perfect English and, like all the women on Blood Island, wears a fetching full length skirt and strapless bra ensemble made from floral patterned fabric. In all seriousness, it’s a great look. (2)

By this point, I think we’ve more or less got the drop of who our ‘heroes’ are. Beverly’s character name is Carla Henderson, and her husband is Dr Paul Henderson, a scientist who has returned to the island to do some unspecified tests that later turn out to have something to do with nearby atomic testing. As played by aging b-movie stalwart Kent Taylor, Dr Henderson resembles Vincent Price after a five-day drinking binge, and proves similarly ineffectual. His wife meanwhile seems determined to continue crowbarring crude sexual innuendoes into every conversation, no matter how inappropriate. (3)

Accompanying this happy couple is a happy-go-lucky young matinee idol type played by John Ashley. This turns out to be Jim, a “Peace Corps man”, apparently. I confess ignorance re: the operations of the Peace Corps, but I can only imagine Jim must have pissed off someone pretty important to find himself shipped out to Blood Island to teach the locals how to dig irrigation ditches. Still, he seems happy enough, especially once he sets eyes on Alam. (4)

So I’ll be honest with you – the first half an hour of ‘Brides of Blood’ is pretty hard going. So much so that I began to seriously question the wisdom of my decision to spend a not inconsiderable amount of money on a blu-ray box set of these films. Though there are some artfully composed, low angle shots here and there (a Gerry de Leon speciality, it seems), the majority of the direction is pure “point & shoot” kind of stuff, whilst performances are hesitant and unconvincing, and the plot rambles on uneventfully like the very worst kind of clock-watching ‘40s b-movie.

As I mentioned in my review of ‘Terror is a Man’, what we are essentially looking at here I think is a pair of talented and creative filmmakers delivering product “on spec” for an American distributor (Hemisphere Films), fully aware that their paymasters only priorities were to keep things cheap and provide enough exploitable material for the U.S. drive-in market. Back in ’59, de Leon and Romero were still making an effort, but by this stage, their disinterest in the material is clear.

The introduction of a colonial plantation owner type (Mario Montenegro) seems a potentially interesting development, and I liked the fact that none of the American visitors seem to bat an eyelid at the fact that his household comprises a hulking, whip-wielding major domo named Goro (Eddie Romero regular Bruno Punzalan) and a coterie of capering dwarfs in loincloths. (I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’d at least have some concerns about who cooked the soup.)

Later scenes shot in the (studio?) interior of this guy’s mansion are composed with a greater degree of care than the island location stuff, lending them a nice, over-heated Italian gothic feel, but the initial sequences involving him drag terribly, especially as the run-time is painfully padded out with footage of people tramping back and forth through jungle clearings as they move between the ‘village’ and ‘mansion’ locations.

The only thing that this opening stretch of ‘Brides..’ really has going for it in fact is the uniquely weird atmosphere shared by all of these Filipino / Hemisphere horror films. In part, this is created by the outrageously lurid colour photography (apparently DP Justo Polino never saw a white shirt he didn’t want to make a little bit green, or a sky that couldn’t be improved by a bit of blazing, radioactive pink), and the cacophonous assemblage of sub-Les Baxter ‘exotica’ on the soundtrack (I hope you dig that “wah-la wala-wala wah-la” chant, because you’re going to be hearing it a lot), but beyond that, a kind of queasy, subliminal strangeness seems to permeate everything on Blood Island.

It’s as if the humid climate and cross-cultural confusion of the shooting location has seeped into the DNA of the film itself. Things have a dazed, unreal quality to them, as reminders of the poverty stricken living conditions of the local extras (scrappy-looking fishing boats and nets hung out to dry, disconcertingly authentic looking mud huts, and hungry looking dogs and pigs snuffling around in the background) find themselves existing side by side with the wildest of movie-making contrivances, such as the goofy totem poles and big ceremonial heads prominently inserted into just about every shot, or the ‘aloha’-style floral necklaces hung around the necks of the modelling agency-sourced female villagers.

This faintly oneiric atmosphere allows the movie to pick up a real crazy head of steam as it goes along, finally boiling over into full scale delirium during the infinitely more entertaining second half.

The first real showstopper comes when some of our Caucasian intruders spy upon the villagers’ ceremony of appeasement for their resident monster-god. Yes, these are those “primitive ways” that the headman was going on about earlier, and it must be said that whichever of his ancestors came up with them back in the time of the ancients sure wasn’t messing around.

Pungent red gel lighting illuminates the night-for-night photography as braziers burn, clouds of purple smoke waft by, and a pair of nubile, writhing virgins are tied to some of those good ol’ X-shaped cross-beams. Our previously dignified headman takes it upon himself to yank off their strapless floral bras (face it, it was going to happen at some point), before he retreats into the bushes to await the approach of “the evil one”.

And, holy mackerel, what a monster it is! I’ve honestly never seen anything quite like this thing. It looks as if someone dropped a load of toxic blue paint over the head of the Ghostbusters Marshmallow Man and stuck googly eyes and a big, toothy mouth onto the remains of its semi-melted face. I love it! Stomping into view like he owns the joint (SPOILER ALERT: he does), the monster descends upon the helpless females with a mass of echoed groaning, panting noises, giving them a frankly indecent pawing before the camera cuts in close on their screaming faces, and the scene – perhaps mercifully – cuts.

Pretty freaky stuff for ’68, but, in case all this wasn’t sleazy enough for you, a subsequent dialogue exchange between Alam and Jim leaves us in no doubt whatsoever so to what this extraordinary beast was actually getting up to just out of shot;

“The men will survive this, because it needs only women. He does not devour his victims, he merely satisfies himself on them.”

“But they were torn to pieces!”

“This is his way of satisfying himself.”

Yikes.

The flimsy rationale for this monstrous activity turns out to involve side effects from the Bikini Atoll bomb tests (Blood Island must have been just downwind, presumably). In addition to causing one of the island’s most prominent citizens to transform into an amorous sludge monster whenever the moon is high, this pesky radiation has also played havoc with the island’s eco-system, causing trees to sprout aggressive, independently mobile vines, which writhe around like bulbous tentacles, fatally ensnaring anyone who veers too close to them. What fun!

Basically, where the first half of ‘Brides..’ saw a lot of people walking interminably through the jungle for no particularly compelling reason, the second half finds them running through it for no particularly compelling reason, shouting and screaming, hacking away at murderous vine-tentacles, and perhaps even being chased by the monster and/or Goro. All of which proves a hell of a lot more entertaining, needless to say.

Whilst all this is going on meanwhile, the dynamic Dr Henderson seems primarily concerned by the unusual behaviour exhibited by a cockroach he has trapped in a jar; “you should have seen this little beast - it had horns and fangs, and even tried to attack a lizard”. For Chrissakes, look out the window, doc – your wife’s about to get eaten by an independently mobile mutant tree! Bloody scientists, I don’t know.

This apparent disdain for the scientific method also extends to the movie’s conclusion. Whereas b-movie convention would normally dictate that Henderson should come up with some ingenious means of combatting the monster and returning the island’s foliage to its natural state, de Leon & Romero instead posit a simpler solution, as John Ashley simply hands out flaming torches to the villagers and suggests that the time has come to just find this goddamn monster and fuck it up. Which they then proceed to do. God bless the Peace Corps!

After the beast has been dispatched in the requisite fiery conflagration, the movie, wonderfully, continues to play out for a further seven minutes of joyous celebration. Maximum tiki bar vibes are in effect here, as the remaining villagers use the same clearing they had previously employed for their ritual sacrifices to stage a rip-roaring party. The blues and purples of the colour scheme become almost overwhelming, as the island’s more attractive young people writhe and grind against each other to the hypnotic sound of the pipes and drums (we’ll be seeing a lot more of this in the following year’s ‘Mad Doctor of Blood Island’), with things eventually reaching their climax as Alam performs a smokin’ hot erotic dance for the enjoyment of of Hero Jim. Oh yeah!

The head-man, who a few minutes of screen-time earlier had been ready to feed his granddaughter to the ancestral god-monster, is now seen happily groovin’ it up, swigging from a mug of the local home brew and casting approving looks in the direction of his potential new grandson-in-law. Other couples meanwhile sneak off into the undergrowth to get busy with their own “primitive ways”, having apparently decided to overlook the fact that their island has been irreparably ravaged by H-bomb radiation, and that the trees are liable to spring into life and strangle them at any moment. Good times! I forget what happened to Carla and the good doctor, but frankly, who cares.

This was my first proper visit to Blood Island, and I must say, whilst it took me a while to settle in, I ended up having a great time. I really got a kick out of the dancing, and the totem poles, and the sunsets… but most of all it was the PEOPLE who really made it worthwhile. So friendly! And the sludge monster. He was pretty cool too. I give it four stars on Trip Advisor, and I’m looking forward to heading back soon.

Posters sourced via Wrong Side of the Art.

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(1) This whole business must have been a bit of a baptism of fire for Miss Hills/Powers, who a few months earlier was twistin’ with The King himself in the 1968 Elvis movie ‘Speedway’. A prolific Hollywood bit player and TV actress with a wealth of ‘stripper’, ‘blonde’ and ‘dancer’ roles on her CV, she seems to have retired from the screen in the mid-‘70s, shortly after appearing as ‘Topless Swimmer [Uncredited]’ in ‘Jaws’.

(2) Happily, Eva Darren appears to have enjoyed a long and rewarding acting career subsequent to her appearance in ‘Brides..’, working in Filipino film and TV right up to the present day. Incidentally, IMDB lists her character name here as ‘Alma’, but I’m pretty sure the people in the movie are saying ‘Alam’, so will go with that.

(3) Described by IMDB as “..a modestly popular “B” actor of the 1930s and 1940s”, Kent Taylor retired from acting in 1975 – perhaps wisely, given the questionable immortality he had acquired in the preceding decade for his rather doddering appearances in such Al Adamson atrocities as ‘Satan’s Sadists’ and ‘Brain of Blood’. (BEST CREDIT: he appeared as a character named “Tonga Jack Adams” in the Florida-shot jungle movie ‘The Mighty Gorga’ in 1969.)

(4)Apparently Ashley was so taken with The Philippines that he more or less relocated to Manila after shooting ‘Brides..’, appearing in just about all of the subsequent Hemisphere horror films, and acting as a producer/fixer for numerous U.S.-Filipino co-productions in the following decade. Gossip  suggests that Ashley was undergoing a messy divorce from fellow AIP Beach Party alumnus Deborah Walley when he agreed to appear in ‘Brides of Blood’ (perhaps the title appealed?), and that his off-screen adventures with the local female population had much to do with his enthusiasm for Filipino life.

Noir Diary # 2: Dark Passage (Delmer Davies, 1947)

Ah, Bogart and Bacall. Need I say more? ‘To Have and Have Not’. ‘Key Largo’. ‘The Big Sleep’. ‘Dark Passage’. Wait a minute, what was that last one again…?

Yes, no one ever talks about ‘Dark Passage’, do they? I wonder if there might be a reason for that? Only one way to find out…

Adapted by director Delmer Davies from the David Goodis novel of the same name (after Bogart himself apparently took a shine to it), ‘Dark Passage’ gets straight down to business with Bogie (or at least, an unseen man with Bogie’s voice – see below) escaping from San Quentin, hidden inside a barrel on the back of a truck.

Taking a dive into the undergrowth at the side of the road, he proceeds to hitch a lift from sneering Warner Bros stock player Clifton Young, essaying the kind of motorist who apparently doesn’t think twice about picking up shabby looking guys in overalls who are mysteriously marooned just down the road from California’s largest prison. An inconvenient radio announcement however alerts the driver (and indeed, us viewers) to the fact that one Vincent Parry – imprisoned for the murder of his wife – has escaped and is on the run, forcing Parry (as we can now identify our protagonist) to lamp Young on the jaw and flee back the questionable safety of the roadside shrubbery.

Just as he is trying the unconscious man’s shoes on for size, he is interrupted by the more promising appearance of Lauren Bacall, who tells him to get in her car pronto before the cops pick him up. For a few seconds, we assume that the pair must know each other, but, as they make the tense run back toward San Francisco, passing through a roadblock on the Golden Gate Bridge with Parry hunkered down under canvas in the back seat, it becomes clear that they have never previously met.

Explaining her actions, Bacall’s character (Irene Jansen to the likes of us) claims that, due to the fact that her own father died in prison after being framed for murder, she has taken a sympathetic interest in Parry’s case after reading about it in the papers, and… well, she just happened to be in the area painting some landscapes when she heard about his escape on the radio, so what the heck, right?

And if you believe THAT, well… perhaps you’ll also be able overlook the question of exactly she managed to pinpoint Parry’s exact location before the cops did. If such unlikely events are liable to pose a problem for you, you should probably be warned that you’re in for a long, hard road with this movie, and it only gets worse from hereon-in. But, for those of us willing to simply accept all this as an intriguing and exciting set-up for a crime story, well… I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I thought the first half of ‘Dark Passage’ was pretty damn great.

We should probably pause at this point to address what, for many, will be the film’s most noteworthy element – namely the fact that our protagonist’s face remains entirely invisible to us for the first hour, with Davies instead relying extensively upon the use of handheld, subjective POV shots.

The director and his collaborators deserve credit here I think for ensuring that this technique never becomes merely a distracting gimmick. The “first person shooter” type material is carefully balanced out by more traditional back of head / long shot footage (not to mention a great taxi ride in which Parry’s face is shrouded in shadow), and the reason for this unusual conceit eventually becomes clear when we see a photograph of Vincent Parry in a newspaper, and realise that he looks absolutely nothing like Humphrey Bogart.

(At which point, legend has it, old Jack Warner nearly suffered a heart attack upon viewing the dailies and realising that he was financing a movie in which his biggest star pointedly did not appear… but, I’m getting ahead of myself.)

After laying low in Irene’s beautifully decorated pad for long enough to take a shower and acquire a new set of duds (like a true early 20th century bad-ass, he knows his inner leg measurement and hat size right off the bat), Parry is soon on the run once again, after the apartment is besieged by Irene’s busy-body frenemy Madge (Agnes Moorehead), who – cue outrageous coincidence number two – turns out to be the same woman whose testimony led to Parry conviction for his wife’s murder in the first place! At this point, even the most credulous of viewers will likely start to suspect an ulterior motive behind Irene’s impulsive decision to act as Parry’s guardian angel, but… best not hold that thought for too long, because the script for ‘Dark Passage’ certainly doesn’t.

Thankfully, such lackadaisical plotting becomes easier to overlook through the next few sequences, which see the film lurching toward what I can only describe as a kind of hard-boiled surrealism, temporarily casting our faceless hero into a weird, urban netherworld that could almost have been pulled from a William S. Burroughs novel.

As Parry drifts aimlessly through the Mission District in the back of a cab, contemplating his sorry situation, the amiable driver – clearly one of Burroughs’ “good Johnsons” – soon wises up to his passenger’s identity. After expressing his opinion that Parry got a raw deal from the law (“I figure you slugged her with that ashtray because she made life difficult for you. I know how it is.”). The cabbie suggests they pay a visit to “a friend of mine - knows his stuff”, who might be able to help him out. Hey, why not?

Now, clearly, the idea that Parry has providentially stumbled upon some genius back street doctor willing to perform miraculous feats of plastic surgery for a couple of hundred bucks - in ninety minutes, at 3 o’clock in the morning, in 1947 - is so utterly fantastic that we’re forced to do more or less what our exhausted protagonist does, and just go along with it in a state of dazed disbelief.

“I perfected my own special technique twelve years ago, before I was kicked out of the Medical Association,” explains the doctor (Houseley Stevenson) as he sharpens his straight razor. “My method is based partly on calling a spade a spade. I don't monkey around. Have you got the money?”

Well I don’t know about you, but I’d probably hand it over. Stevenson has one hell of a bedside manner, and, as sloppy as this movie’s scripting may be elsewhere, the dialogue assigned to both he and Tom D’Andrea’s good samaritan cabbie is absolutely fantastic. Both actors deliver splendid character turns that, along with Davies’s bold, expressionistic direction (including a classic long-plunge-to-oblivion nightmare bit when the doc administers the anaesthetic), help to sell these potentially ridiculous events to us quite brilliantly.(1)

After curtly advising him that his bandages can be removed in twelve days, and that, until then, he needs to stay on a liquid diet, can’t speak and must sleep on his back with his arms tied to the bed (“you can smoke, but - use a holder”), the doc bids farewell to Parry – his face now a recognisably Bogart-shaped mass of bandages – as the sun rises over the bay.

For a while after the operation sequence, the film retains a sense of jittery, off-kilter adrenalin, presumably reflecting Parry’s frantic state of mind as he sets off in search of a safe place to recuperate. In a scene almost worthy of a ‘Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid’ style parody, our hero returns first to the home of his best pal – a down-on-his-luck jazz musician – only to discover that the poor guy has been beaten to death with his own horn!

“The only thing he ever wanted was to go to South America with me, and to play that trumpet,” Bogart’s voiceover deadpans, as he raises the bent instrument into shot. “That's all he wanted out of life. Go to Peru, play a trumpet. Now he's dead.”

It is at moments like this that I wonder why I waste my time watching films that are not late ‘40s noirs.

This is closely followed by another great moment, when, returning in exhausted desperation to Irene’s place, Parry staggers, barely conscious, up one of those vertiginous San Francisco hills, only to find an open-topped car parked outside the apartment building… with the same highly distinctive seat covers he had previously noted on the one belonging to the by now long-forgotten motorist whom he slugged at the side of road! The plot thickens…

Unfortunately however, it never really thickens into anything terribly interesting, and it is a sad irony that, from the moment Bacall eventually removes Bogart’s bandages following a fortnight of caring ministrations, finally revealing the iconic face of the film’s star, ‘Dark Passage’s momentum sags fatally and never really recovers.

I’ve not had the opportunity to read the Goodis source novel, but, knowing that author’s gift for exploring the inner life of his doomed and desperate characters, I can well imagine him pulling something worthwhile out of this story. Rendered as a flat Hollywood thriller however, the resolution of the film’s central murder mystery plotline achieves the rare distinction of being both unfeasible and boring, despite the admirable efforts of Agnes Moorehead, chomping her way through the scenery like a thespian pit-bull.

Also off-putting, from my point of view at least, was the sense of schizophrenia that seems to afflict Bogart’s characterisation throughout the movie. Although we never get much background on Vincent Parry, all available evidence seems to suggest that, prior to the misfortune of being framed for his wife’s murder, he was, well… a bit of a chump, to not put too fine a point on it.

We build an impression of him as a bland, middle-aged guy, stuck in a loveless marriage, who presumably hoofed it into the city each day to do some sedate desk job, before spending his leisure time drinking cocktails with a group of insular, bitchy friends who didn’t even seem to like him very much. So - not exactly your average Humphrey Bogart character, in other words.

It’s surely no accident that, prior to the surgery, the doctor tells Parry, “I’ll make you look as if you’ve lived” – that of course being the essential quality Bogart brought to all his roles - but unfortunately the disjuncture between actor and character here extends beyond the kind of cognitive dissonance you’d reasonably expect from this kind of face-swap story.

Armed with that voice even before he goes under the knife, Parry sometimes seems as panicked and clueless as we’d expect of an average joe in his situation, but elsewhere in the film, he suddenly becomes proficient in slugging guys in the face, handling guns and talking turkey with small-time hoodlums… not to mention having a loyal best friend who’s a down-on-his-luck jazz musician. So, who exactly are we watching here? Vincent Parry, the mild-mannered suburban fall guy, or Humphrey Bogart, the movie star, roaming free in his usual hard-boiled persona? Like so much in ‘Dark Passage’, the whole thing never really gels.

Likewise, I find it difficult to believe that Goodis’s novel gave this story’s central couple as easy a ride together as they get here. Bacall is excellent here, projecting a mixture of menace, mystery, practicality and vulnerability that pretty much nails exactly what’s needed for a female lead in a film noir, but, as I’ve mentioned above, the character's behaviour is also profoundly suspicious from the outset. In any other noir, she’d have made for such an obvious femme fatale they might as well have decorated her apartment with a giant spider’s web.

But, as an early example perhaps of the kind of “star driven” scripting that has blighted so much Hollywood product in the 21st century, ‘Dark Passage’ was clearly built around the famed on-screen chemistry of its real-life star couple, and nothing so silly as “telling a good story” was going to be allowed to upset the thoroughly wholesome nature of their characters’ burgeoning relationship.

This leads us, inevitably, to a deeply unconvincing South of the Border happy ending, complete with a faux-exotic night club setting, which feels very much like a limp attempt to reignite the romanticism of ‘Casablanca’. This seems especially ironic, given that that film’s entire emotional arc was predicated on the idea of a couple who don’t get together at the end, but whatcha gonna do?

Though a deeply flawed movie, and an understandable box office failure upon its initial release, I don’t want readers to feel as if I’m coming down too hard on ‘Dark Passage’. At the very least, it remains a prime slice of film noir style from what was arguably the genre’s peak era. Davies’ direction is energetic and accomplished, the San Francisco location shooting is absolutely beautiful, and the stand-out sequences during the first half are total classics. Even after that, you’ve still got a cast that can legitimately be termed “legendary” firing on all cylinders.

With all that in the ‘plus’ column, who am I to sit here giving it the “script problems from day one” treatment? If you’re a noir fan, or a Bogart fan, or a Bacall fan (or hell, even a Houseley Stevenson fan) and you’ve previously overlooked this one – give it a try, it’s well worth your time.

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(1)TRIVIA ALERT: Houseley Stevenson was the father of Onslow Stevens(on), who enjoyed a parallel Hollywood career, also seemingly specialising in doctors. He played the doctor in Universal’s ‘House of Dracula’ two years prior to this film, and went on to wield a stethoscope in ‘Night Has a Thousand Eyes’ (1948) and ‘The Creeper’ (1948) amongst many others, before expanding his range to play a general in ‘Them!’ (1954). Suffice to say, despite his best efforts, his Dad beat him hands-down when it came to movie doctors, if his performance in ‘Dark Passage’ is anything to go by.

Blood Island Journal # 1: Terror is a Man (Gerardo de Leon & Eddie Romero, 1959)

 One of the ideas that has long been on my list of “things to do” on this blog is to start a series writing about what I tend to mentally categorise as “East Meets West” genre cinema. By this, I mean the seemingly endless number of movies that resulted from filmmakers with an eye toward the American (or occasionally European) grindhouse/drive-in circuit suddenly deciding to take advantage of the possibilities offered by East Asian culture, shooting locations or personnel – with wildly varied results, needless to say, although these productions can usually be loosely united by the fact that they’re almost always uproariously entertaining.

Naturally, the vast majority of this globe-trotting activity took place in the aftermath of Bruce Lee’s breakout success in the early 1970s and the subsequent explosion of interest in martial arts, but the foundations of the trend were actually in place long before that, and Ground Zero, of course, was The Philippines.

Now, I’m not sufficiently schooled in the history to Filipino cinema to really go into any detail about how the nation’s nascent commercial film industry was kick-started by the influx of American culture and equipment that followed in the wake of the Korean War in (and, subsequently, by the Marcos regime’s enthusiastic encouragement of international co-productions), but I DO know that the earliest film I’ve seen that fits this “East Meets West” category is ‘Terror is a Man’, an ambitious and well-realised 1959 horror film directed and produced by Filipino nationals Gerardo de Leon and Eddie Romero.

Although ‘Terror is a Man’ was technically a 100% Filipino production, the audience that Romero and de Leon were aiming their film at is as clear as the Pan Am baggage ticket that presumably took their film canisters across the Pacific. Shot in English with a Caucasian central cast, the film purports to be set on an island “…one thousand miles off the coast of Peru”, and relegates Filipino performers exclusively to servant / villager roles. In just about every respect in fact, it follows the pattern set by American b-horror films of the ‘40s and ‘50s to a tee.

The big surprise here however is that ‘Terror is a Man’ is actually a really good faux-American b-movie, drawing as much from the storied Lewton / Tourneur legacy is it does from the kind of lurid creature features that it was destined to share bills with in middle-American drive-ins.

On the face of it of course, there is no reason why we should be surprised at the film’s quality. Operating outside of anyone’s stereotypical assumptions about ‘third world’ movie making, Romero and de Leon both seem to have been cosmopolitan, internationally-minded gentlemen who had been working as film industry professionals for many years before they embarked on their first horror film.What makes ‘Terror..’ surprising in retrospect rather is the knowledge that, during the decade that followed, the two men returned to the fray with a fistful of the most shamelessly stupid, cheeseball trash-horror films that the late 1960s had to offer, produced on-spec at the behest of haemoglobin-fixated New York-based distributors Hemisphere Pictures.

Hopefully we’ll  return to those little wonders at some point in the future, but when it comes to trying to account for the drastic change of approach that separates them from this relatively sombre and seriously intended first foray into the genre, perhaps we’re best to simply conclude that ‘Terror is a Man’ taught our dynamic duo an important lesson re: subtlety rarely paying anyone’s bills at this level of the industry. (“Bring your own tranquilisers!” thundered the posters when Hemisphere belatedly re-released the film as ‘Blood Creature’ in 1965.)

Essentially operating as a minimalist rewrite of ‘The Island of Dr Moreau’ - perhaps with a touch of Hammer’s ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ thrown in for good measure - ‘Terror is a Man’ essentially concerns the travails of Bill Fitzgerald (Richard Derr), a shipwrecked American sailor who finds himself washed up upon the troubled shores of the aforementioned island.

Bill awakens to find himself recuperating in the home of one Dr Charles Girard (Francis Lederer), formerly a successful family doctor in New York, who has relocated to this unsurpassably remote locale along with his unfeasibly glamorous young wife Frances (Greta Thyssen), in order (of course) to obtain the privacy he needs to pursue his own private research. (Sure, whatever ya say, doc – I’ll just get the chains and tranquilizer darts ready in advance, shall I?)

It seems that Bill has arrived on the island at an inopportune moment. Moments after he has regained consciousness, the Doctor’s surly assistant Walter (Oscar Keesee) appears to announce that some ill-defined “animal” has escaped “again” from the doctor’s laboratory, prompting the island’s small native population to finally call it a day and bugger off for pastures new in their fishing boats. Only the two young orphans who serve as the Doctor’s loyal servants have chosen to remain, reducing the island’s human population to a slim six, with a rickety wooden dinghy constituting the only way off it.

Recuperating with admirable speed, our hero takes these unpromising developments in his stride. Finding Girard and Walter desperately digging a series of vast pit traps and baiting them with raw meat, he begins cheerfully bantering with them about what kind of critter they’re lookin’ to catch, failing to take the hint even when they continue to evade his questions through the strained, formal dinner that follows that evening. Meanwhile, the rain pours down, storm winds shake the shutters and, out in the distant undergrowth, the “animal” howls with disquieting desperation.

All of which may sound like business as usual for an island-set monster movie, but ‘Terror is a Man’s consummate execution nonetheless places it significantly above the norm for this kind of material.

For one thing, the film is flawlessly atmospheric, as Emmanuel I. Rojas’s classically brooding black & white photography - incorporating some surprisingly elaborate camera movement and looming shadows all over the joint - combines with the authentically primeval tropical locations to create a palpable sense of isolation. If I tell you that the directors’ pacing is ‘deliberate’ meanwhile, that’s not merely a synonym for ‘boring’. On the contrary, the movie ebbs and flows with a distinct rhythm that makes for a highly engaging slow-burn.

For another thing, the film takes a pleasantly off-beat approach to characterisation relative to the cardboard cut-out stuff common to movies like this, aided by a set of performances that, if not exactly Oscar-worthy, are at least pretty solid. I liked the way for instance that Bill is initially far cheerier and less immediately judgemental about all the sinister goings on than macho heroes generally tend to be, and Lederer for his part is actually pretty great in the role of the Doctor. (If you recognise him, b-movie fans, it might be for playing the title role in 1958’s ‘The Return of Dracula’.)

Though Dr Girard is shifty and secretive to a fault to begin with, the scene in which he is eventually forced to come clean about the nature of his experiments actually becomes one of the film’s highlights. After showing Bill a notebook full of (rather cool) sketches of idealised human/animal hybrids, the doctor seems surprised when, rather than greeting these revelations with outraged disgust, Bill expresses a tentative interest in the ideas behind his work. Sensing that he might finally have found a friend, the doc immediately changes his tune, happily inviting the crude sailor down to his previously verboten basement to take a look around and see what he thinks. In terms of mad scientist etiquette, it’s really quite sweet.

Poor Frances too gets a bit more to chew on than the token dames generally do in these things, especially when her character directly addresses the inevitable question of why a beautiful blonde always seems to end up hanging around in these inhospitable locales. Concisely explaining her circumstances to Bill, she asks - what trainee nurse wouldn’t jump at the chance to marry a handsome and wealthy doctor and move to a tropical island? Be careful what you wish for, etc.

Even the servants – a teenage brother and sister whose mother, it later transpires, was killed by the monster – are fairly likeable (the filmmakers are considerate enough to credit them with a certain amount of charm and intelligence), but really, what most people will take away from this film is the memory of that monster itself.

Essentially representing a panther that has, through hundreds of hours of gruelling exploratory surgery, been transformed into the shape of a man, this ghastly, hate and fear-driven shambler, with feline fangs jutting from its jaw and wild patches of fur bursting from its mummy-like bandages, lies somewhere between Christopher Lee’s creature in ‘Curse..’ and the hideous cellar-dweller in Stuart Gordon’s Castle Freak on the fear vs sympathy scale.

Though ‘Terror is a Man’ may be subtle in some regards, the vividness with which de Leon and Romero depict the cruelty and torment suffered by this unlikely creature falls way outside the Lewton ballpark. Though there is little explicit gore, the ‘feel’ of the material probably rivals anything that had been done in the horror genre to this point for sheer nastiness.

I mean, at least Dr Moreau’s creations got to roam around in relative freedom, establishing a community and interacting with each other. This poor bastard by contrast has spent its entire waking existence in the House of Pain, leaving it crazed by the constant torment, even before the brutish Walter, resentful of the doctor’s fixation with the creature, begins delivering sadistic beatings to it, in a series of scenes more gruellingly upsetting than anything your correspondent has ever seen in a 50s / 60s monster movie.

Who can blame the misbegotten thing for going on the rampage? Certainly not I, given how comprehensively its suffering casts a pall over the ‘action’ that takes place in the second half of this curiously compelling, thoroughly down-beat attempt by two Far Eastern filmmakers to carve out a space for themselves in the Great American Grindhouse.

Posters sourced via Wrong Side of the Art.