Black Gate

The Golden Horde (USA, 1951)

Huns and Mongols, the mounted hordes who swept out of Central Asia into eastern and central Europe in the Middle Ages, made a lasting impact on the psyche of the folk of the lands they invaded, all the way down the 20th century—as shown by the fact that Allied propaganda during World War I successfully branded their German opponents as “the Huns.” Invoking the Mongol Horde was a reliable source of terror in mid-century movies from Russia to Italy to Hollywood, as we see in the films covered in this week’s article. All three suffer from the casual racism of the time in which they were made, but it’s better to see that and note it than to pretend it never happened or doesn’t matter. History is always seen through the lens of the time it’s viewed from, and we learn interesting lessons from its distortions.

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Still reading and writing about Numenor, and Khazad-dum, for upcoming essays, so Talking The Rings of Power takes the week off. The Downfall of Numenor, the new book put together by Brian Sibley, is pretty good. The narrative flow works, and Alan Lee’s sketches are really nice. If you liked his Sketchbooks for The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit, you’ll definitely like the volume and quality of these sketches.

And, I switched gears a little bit and I pulled Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun off my shelf. I’d not read any of his ‘epic poem’ books before. The lecture in the front, from one of his Oxford classes, was quite interesting.

So, it’s another What I’ve Been Watching. And along with some stuff with my son, I’ve been jumping around – good and bad.

TULSA KING

Gonna start with a brand new show. Episode two aired just last night, and I haven’t even seen it yet. Sylvester Stallone is a NY gangster who just finishes a 25-year prison term in the show’s opening scene. He ‘took one for the team,’ as it were. And he’s rewarded by being sent off to set up a mob operation in Tulsa. Which is basically like being banished to Siberia. I really didn’t spoil anything for you. This is the opening setup of the show.

Stallone is TERRIFIC in the part. I had not expectations either way, and he hits a grand slam. He’s a NYC lifetime mob guy, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Yeah… There is a ton of funny in this show. Not stupid, Adam Sandler ‘funny.’ But humor within the context of Stallone taking over the town.

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The Frighteners 15th Anniversary Blu-Ray

Read Part I: The Real-Life Inspiration, and Part 2: Humor & Horror Examples + A Recap.

When I sat down to write about The Frighteners, I found myself writing around the “problem/s” with the movie. At first I thought it didn’t have enough plot, but it has plot points galore, and while every character seemed to be a trope or stereo-type, there were lots of hints about the depths of these characters and their relationships. I deleted a fair bit of what I wrote, after I realized that I wasn’t finding the problem. So I watched it a third time. It was like scales fell from my eyes. I think I understand Peter Jackson’s formula for the film, and having clued into that, I liked it ever so much more.

The Frighteners is two films sharing the same celluloid, but paying little or no attention to the other. The scary ghost story is unaware of the broad comedy, and vice versa.

In this world, average humans and average ghosts share the same locations and space, but are generally unaware of each other. The living are busy with their stuff, and the ghosts are tightly focused on their own problems (like avoiding bully ghosts). There are a scarce few ghosts, and even fewer humans, who are aware or care about what’s going on with the denizens on the other side of the veil, even if they’re standing physical elbow to ghostly jowl on the street corner waiting for the light to change.

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The Buccaneer (USA, 1958)

Pirates were a popular subject in midcentury Hollywood — but piracy, not so much, because it was obviously committed by bad people who would take all your stuff, given the chance (and maybe do worse). Thus the common cinematic usage of the term buccaneer, which sounds like it just describes a gentleman adventurer with an attitude rather than someone who would casually cut your throat and throw your corpse over the side. Aye, call your pirate movie a buccaneer’s tale, and even theatrical markets in the iron grip of the Legion of Decency will smile and let your film be shown at Saturday matinees to audiences full of kiddies. All keelhauling is to be conducted offscreen, if you please.

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The Frighteners (Universal Pictures, 1996)

Read Part I: The Real-Life Inspiration here.

I hadn’t seen The Frighteners since it was in the theaters in 1996, until I watched it again last week. Twice. I had drastically different reactions between the second and third viewings.

After my first 2022 re-view, I came away thinking the movie was mainly just paying homage through pastiche to a lot of things. While it had interesting vignettes with diverse tones and styles, it never fully gelled into its own thing. It’s as if it went to a Halloween costume shop, tried on and modeled a dozen different outfits, then later said, “What did you think of my costume?” It was more a fashion show than a full narrative arc.

It was equal parts horror and humor. Often, an equal ratio doesn’t work well. It comes off as a split personality, or two different films sharing a movie reel. This is especially true when the humor isn’t a coping mechanism for the protagonist or an emotional vent for the audience. The humor was there, but it never really served a purpose in the way humor normally does when mixed with horror. The two parts seemed at odds.

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“Doctor, I’m at my wit’s end with my husband. He’s – changed. It’s like I’m in one of those paranoid movies.”

“I must repeat, madame, lie back. Take a deep breath. Tell me about it as if you are speaking to a trusted friend.”

“Well, it’s this show. Andor. It’s a Star Wars thing. My husband watches it every week. He’s anxious all Monday and Tuesday about it lately.”

“Ah yes. Tony Gilroy is the showrunner I believe.”

“I think so. At first it was just little things. So easy to dismiss. He’d be looking through his old Star Wars books, these sort of technical manuals, and when I asked him about it he said he was trying to figure out if the ship in ‘Kassa’ was an old BTL-B with the engine housing still on or something like that. He asked our son if any NERF guns looked like Cassian’s blaster.”

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