Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Here in the middle of April it appears that spring has finally sprung, as we are at last receiving survivable external temperatures consistently enough for me to start running again. I know an exercise regime of “running intermittently through the spring and summer, then hibernating through the winter” is more suitable for a bear or squirrel than a human being, but my willpower sadly is what it is, and if going outside makes me regret the vast, frigid distances between our planet and the sun, I am not likely to don my jogging shorts. Anyway, today looks basically perfect, so let’s not waste any more time vamping out an introduction, and dive straight into this week in features!
First up this week was Phase IV, a ‘74 scifi horror feature directed by acclaimed graphic designer Saul Bass, and centered on a remote scientific outpost in the Arizona desert. There, biologist Ernest Hubbs (Nigel Davenport) and game theorist James Lesko (Michael Murphy) run experiments on an unusual collection of ant colonies, which appear to have abandoned their antagonism and joined together for some higher purpose. As the two scientists study these bizarrely intelligent ants, they begin to realize that they too are the subjects of a grim experiment.
Oh man, this was one hell of a journey! You know you’re in for a good time when you’ve got a film directed by a visual artist who’d otherwise never touch a camera, and Phase IV absolutely does not disappoint, relishing in the ominous imagery both above and below the Arizona desert. The stark, alien hives constructed by the ants, like obelisks raised to some unknowable god, are only the first of this film’s many effective gestures towards cosmic horror. From there, the surreal threat of the hyper-intelligent ants begins to calcify into hard, implacable challenges, as what was first assumed to be a scientific survey is reframed first as a war, and then a term of imprisonment.
Davenport and Murphy are both excellent here, with Davenport providing the high-minded philosophizing and Murphy the pragmatic humanism, although both demonstrate a cleanly articulated fascination with their subjects. The film’s mechanical variables (the outpost’s defenses, the desert’s threats, the ants’ innovations) are so solidly defined that it works purely on the crunchy base-defense level of something like Seven Samurai, while leaving plenty of room for both intense character moments and persistent gestures to a force beyond our understanding, which has as much difficulty conveying its lofty thoughts to our leads as they do communicating with the ants. If you’re squeamish about insects I’d probably stay away, but for everyone else, this counts among the unsung masterpieces of horror cinema, and of The Weird more generally.
We then checked out The Music Man, the ‘62 adaptation of the Broadway musical, featuring original star Robert Preston as titular schemer “Professor” Howard Hill. Arriving at the town of River City, Iowa, Hill plans on executing his usual scheme of selling the town on a boy’s marching band trained and led by Hill himself, and skipping town the moment he secures payment for the costumes and instruments. However, local librarian Marian Paroo (Shirley Jones) sees through his hokum, and in the process of seducing her, Hill finds himself seduced as well.
The Music Man offers a classic tale of the leopard attempting to shed his spots, as Hill balances a dozen spinning plates while slowly, inexorably falling in love with both Marian and her quaint community. With the play’s original Broadway director Morton DaCosta also helming the film, the production feels extraordinarily confident in all regards, offering sprawling dance numbers and rambling tongue-twisters, as Preston conducts and guides our sympathies as easily as those of the people of River City.
The film is visually splendorous, energetic and whimsical, and packed with talent who all make the most of their endearing archetypes (the real-life barbershop quartet serving as the local school board are particular charmers). With over eight hundred stage performances behind him, Preston maintains absolute authority as Hill, making the work of playing a sympathetic scoundrel look effortless even as he misleads characters we know and love. Having never seen the show before, I was particularly touched by the nuance of its conclusion, its attesting that the life we imagined may not be achievable, but that it is still a worthy thing to conjure kind-hearted fantasies. A man who sells you a false bill of goods for his own profit is a thief; on the other hand, those who spin fantasy for our collective emotional nourishment are great men indeed.
We then checked out Duel, a ‘71 made-for-TV movie directed by a young upstart named Steven Spielberg. Dennis Weaver stars as David Mann, a mild-mannered salesman driving through rural California in order to meet a client. On the way, he finds himself accosted by a stranger in a rust-streaked semi-truck, who first alternately tailgates and blocks Mann’s passage, and then outright attempts to drive him off the road. As the situation escalates, Mann will have to do battle with a force of seemingly inhuman malevolence, embodied in the form of a pitiless metallic monster.
Duel is a work of efficiency and adrenaline, containing only as many establishing moments as necessary to solidify Mann’s self-image, and from there trapping him in a one-lane cage with a hateful animal. Even this early in his career, Spielberg’s direction and management of sound design are exceptional; Duel is alternately claustrophobic and sprawling, making the most of his bold choice to film outdoors with such limited time and budget, and drawing effectively from both horror and western cinematographic language. Scenes where Mann leaves his vehicle can occasionally drag (apparently many such sequences were shot later to reach a theatrical length), but every moment behind the wheel is pure anxious tension, demonstrating the absolute fluency of cinematic vocabulary that would soon make Spielberg a household name. It’s Jaws on Wheels, and as recommendable as that description would imply.
Last up for the week was The Great Wall, a recent action epic starring Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal as unlikely visitors to the Great Wall of China, driven in search of gunpowder and ultimately recruited to the wall’s defense. The wall’s existing defenders certainly need all the help they can get, for it turns out in this universe, evil velociraptor armies are intent on invading China. Thus we get a whole lot of Damon and Pascal fighting goddamn velociraptors, alongside some preposterously ill-considered defensive maneuvers by the wall’s own courageous defenders.
Seriously, you would not believe how stupid these warriors are. I mean, the film is obviously stupid on its face, as “velociraptors attack the Great Wall and only Matt Damon can save us” is close to the silliest premise you could propose without veering into intentional self-parody. But on top of that, you’ve got hilariously misguided concepts like the wall’s “bungee jumping squad,” who bounce down towards the velociraptors with spears and then rebound back up to the wall. This attack strategy prompted a question that was immediately answered in the least surprising way: the defenders had essentially invented a bouncing raptor-snack system, wherein three out of every four spearmen are simply caught and devoured the moment they leap off the wall.
Sequences like that and the army’s equally ill-fated zeppelin squad possess a certain “how did this ever get past the first draft” charm, but they are sadly not enough to make for an earnestly watchable film. The Great Wall is absolutely perfect for late-night quasi-inebriated screening with the right viewing party, but I can’t recommend it as something anyone should offer their undivided attention.
