jetpack_monkey_ljarchive

Title: The Bullpen
Song: The Bullpen by Dessa
Source: The Hazards of Helen (1914-17)
Length: 2:11
Made for: thirdblindmouse, Festivids 2015 

"An Action Girl is a female Badass who is just as tough and kicks just as much butt as the guys do. ... Expect regular appearances in action scenes, facing dangerous foes and deadly obstacles, and expect her to win." -- TV Tropes

Password: actionwoman

Download 42.4MB MP4 (right/ctrl-click and Save File As...)
 

( Yes, I have rambling notes and some brief discussion of film history )

From elipie : Ramble on about your favorite Universal monster.

For sheer power an emotional resonance, nothing beats the Frankenstein Monster as played by Boris Karloff in the 1931 film Frankenstein (and to a lesser extent in Bride of Frankenstein and a much lesser extent in Son of Frankenstein). Anyone arguing that monster acting is somehow less than "regular" acting should immediately review the scene where we meet the Monster for the first time. Karloff, under heavy makeup, uses awkward, stilted-but-not-stiff movements to evoke the otherness of this hapless being.  Then, in one of my favorite movie moments, Doctor Frankenstein opens a slat in the roof and lets the sunlight pour in. The Monster, who in his brief time on Earth has only known the darkness of the lab and its dungeon, reaches up, stretching for the light, his eyes full of confusion and wonder. And just as soon as he finds something hopeful in his life, the doctor closes the slat, his experiment moving on. And Karloff's hands go out in this helpless, pleading gesture and I. just. fucking. break.

Karloff's performance throughout really captures the soul of the Monster, an Other born into a world that didn't want him and that he didn't ask for. It's a 75-minute commitment that I suggest you make. Now. I'll wait.

While I do love Bride of Frankenstein, I think it loses some of the Monster's pathos for a number of reasons. The movie is played much more strongly for comedy, for one thing. The Monster also spends a good chunk of the film playing henchman for Dr. Pretorious, which becomes his go-to role for the next several films, serving one human master after another, until he becomes a pawn to be left off the play board until the end of the movie by the time House of Frankenstein rolls around in 1944. Of course, Karloff exited the role after 1939's Son of Frankenstein, an excellent film that, unfortunately, reduces the Monster's role to boogeyman at the beck and call of Bela Lugosi's Ygor. Don't get me wrong, I love their dynamic and Lugosi kills it in that movie, but it's clear that they've burned through all of their interesting ideas for the characterization and development of the Monster.

If I had to pick a Universal monster that absolutely did it for me in all of the films in which it appeared, it would have to be The Wolf Man/Larry Talbot. But that's an essay for another day.

par_avion pointed me in the direction of an Ain't It Cool News post where Harry Knowles talks about one of the formative experiences of his youth -- a collection of classic horror film clips set to music that he bought on 16mm when he was very wee. He also put that video up on Youtube for others to view.


In the comments on the Youtube page, the maker, Cortlandt Hull, left a comment with a little more information. The piece, which had a title card that was cut off in the version Knowles uploaded, is called "Rendezvous" and it debuted at the Famous Monsters of Filmland Convention in 1975. 1975 is also the year that Kandy Fong started doing her thing with Kirk and Spock stills.

Hull had the advantage of having access to the actual films -- probably either 16mm dupes or the 8mm home movie versions released by Castle Films -- but it must have been insanely difficult to put together in any case.

There's a version with the title cards intact but crappier visual quality over here.

I'm afraid I'm no historian when it comes to horror fanworks, so I don't know if this was the first such horror songvid or if there was a tradition that continued from it. I know that Hull made a sequel later.

It's just interesting to see the parallel developments. If horror fandom picked up vidding in the 1970s/1980s, they'd dropped it by the time I came onto the scene (I think -- admittedly I was more of a horror fan than a member of horror fandom). The horror vids that we see today developed out of the tradition and community that came from media/slash fandom and AMVs.

A lot of different sources went into the making of my Starships! remix vid, partially out of a desire for a large range of sources, but also because I was working hard to match the clips from bironic's original vid as much as possible.

( 77 sources, give or take ) 

VividCon was amazing, but I'm not braining very well, so there may be another post later where I discuss the sources in more depth.

I will say this, though: this vid would not have been possible without Cinemageddon or Archive.org.

niqaeli will appreciate that I've hit my limit on this.

You know that saucy black and white film you just saw that was way, way sexier or violent or effed up than old classic films seems like they should be? You will hear it called pre-Code everywhere, even by film historians who should know better. This annoys me to no end.

The "Code" in question was the Motion Picture Production Code, which was put in place in 1930 to make sure that films met certain decency standards (and to eventually wear down and eliminate the then-prevalent state censorship boards). A lot of it was moralistic censorship -- criminals must always be punished, authority must always be respected, the clergy could never be portrayed in a bad light. Unsurprisingly, a lot of it had to do with sex, specifically in such a way that it must be made to seem unglamorous or just bad outside of marriage. There was some serious racist crap in there as well.

Anyway. If a film was made after 1930, it was not, by definition pre-Code. It was, however, pre-Code enforcement. It wasn't until 1934 when the  Production Code Administration office was established (and Joseph Breen installed at its head) that any actions were taken. The PCA required that all films be certified as meeting the standards of the code before they were allowed release.

So by definition, the saucy film r you are talking about is pre-PCA or pre-Breen if it was made between 1930 and 1934. It's not pre-Code and calling it that really dissipates an interesting era in film history where the studios were given a set of rules they were expected to follow for the sake of decency... and then threw them out.

How the hell James Whale got half of the crap he pulled in 1935's Bride of Frankenstein past Breen is a story for another day.

Vid Title: A Sophisticated Song
Length: 1:43
Song: Hugh Laurie - Sophisticated Song
Source: Cary Grant / Katharine Hepburn pairings (Holiday, Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story)
Warnings: Adorableness, pratfalls

Summary: Cary Grant + Katharine Hepburn = Hijinks

( Notes and Embed behind the cut )

Just going over the ever-dwindling collection of VHS tapes that are filed with DVD because no DVD equivalent exists, and a thought struck me that may be of interest only to myself.

Universal owns the entire Paramount catalogue from before 1949 (with the exception of anything in the public domain and Preston Sturges' Miracle of Morgan's Creek, which they would not buy as the material was far too racy). While Paramount's never been a big horror studio (something that they've stuck with through multiple changes in ownership), they did produce seven minor, but notable horror films that are not available on DVD in any shape or form. They are:

* Murder by the Clock '31
* Island of Lost Souls '33 (with Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi)
* Murders in the Zoo '33 (with Charles Ruggles, Lionel Atwill, and Randolph Scott)
* Supernatural '33 (with Carole Lombard and Randolph Scott)
* Dr. Cyclops '40 (the first all-Technicolor horror film)
* The Monster and the Girl '41 (with George Zucco)
* The Uninvited (with Ray Milland)

(two more are available on DVD -- The Ghost Breakers, which is a horror/comedy starring Bob Hope, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde '31, which through convoluted circumstances is owned by Warner).

It seems like Universal is sitting on both a treasure trove and a problem. Only three of the films have saleable horror stars, but most of the rest have either historical value or a "normal" star of some kind. However, major Hollywood stars of yesteryear do not tend to sell horror films of yesteryear, unless said stars are specifically linked with the horror genre.

Releasing each film individually would be folly, but there's also no major thematic link or star that brings all the movies together. Releasing a "Paramount Horrors" collection would be confusing (what's Universal doing advertising for Paramount horror films?). A generic "classic horrors" set might work, especially if the tossed in some of the harder-to-classify Universal horrors of the era (like Secret of the Blue Room, Mystery of Edwin Drood, and the 1943 Phantom of the Opera).

Anyway. That's your classic horror geek rambling for the day.