TCM Genre movies schedule...

[Greg Cox]

Klaus wrote:

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The guy playing Sinbad didn't really leave an impression and it was odd seeing him in an arctic setting.

Believe it or not, that was John Wayne's son.

[Christopher]

Coming up in less than an hour as I write this is The Story of Mankind, Irwin Allen's first non-documentary work as a director. Vincent Price as Satan putting humanity on trial, lots of stock footage recapping human history, and the last film to have all three of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico Marx in it (though they don't appear together), as well as Ronald Colman's last film and Hedy Lamarr's last American film. Plus an all-star cast including Peter Lorre, Cesar Romero, John Carradine, and Dennis Hopper. It's reportedly a campy mess, but how can I pass it up?

And at 9:45 tonight is the 1936 Dracula's Daughter. The Quatermass film Five Million Years to Earth reruns at 1 AM, followed at 2:45 by a Hans Conreid horror film called The Twonky, about an evil television set taking over a man's life (so, a documentary?).

Tomorrow (12/1) we have:

7:45 AM Murders in the Rue Morgue
4:45 PM Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

A promotional short about the making of 2010 is on at 3:38 AM Dec. 3.

[Harvey]

Is that the same promotional short that's on the DVD and Blu-Ray of 2010?

[Klaus]

Story of Mankind was indeed a campy mess, redeemed and made sort of watchable by Vincent Price [Mr. Scratch, the prosecutor], Ronald Coleman [the Spirit of Man, counsel for the defense], and Cedric Hardwicke [the Judge]. Man has discovered the "super H-bomb" sixty years before we were meant to, and don't realize that it will in fact cause our extinction. The trial is called to decide if humanity is worth intervening on behalf of or should be left to destroy itself. Price and Coleman tour history plucking examples to support their cases, which is where the cameos come in... most of them were pretty embarrassing, but it was fun in a loopy way. The end is very much like the original Day The Earth Stood Still...

[Christopher]

^I watched the first 45 minutes and then decided to let the DVR handle the rest. Price is always fun, and after having heard various impressions of Ronald Colman over the years it's interesting to see the genuine article. But it's pretty awful overall. It's the kind of thing you'd only expect to see these days on a religious channel, since it's so blatant in equating Christian piety with goodness and superimposing a Judeo-Christian framework on historical events that had nothing to do with it, like the building of Khufu's pyramid. And the villains, figures like Cleopatra and Nero, are so one-dimensionally evil.

[Mr. Adventure]

Nukes really absorbed popular culture there for a while, didn't they? Unfortunately, I have to agree that The Story of Mankind wasn't too great and only stomached a bit of it.

Dracula's Daughter I found a lot more interesting. It had a neat take on the story and tackled it smartly. I thought the editing was almost modern with a lot of closeups, tracking shots, zooms, cuts and so on. It seemed a bit different than other films of the thirties. Gloria Holden really looked the part and Marguerite Churchill was quite the looker in this one as well.

[Agent Richard07]

Anyone check out Solaris? I thought it was slow, plodding and hard to sit through, and the subtitles didn't help, but it had a good story and excellent production values. I was also surprised at how similar it was to the 2002 version. A lot fo the scenes on the station were pretty much the same. This one also had a strong focus on the love story, something that was a complaint when the 2002 version came out.

[RJDiogenes]

The Story Of Mankind was indeed a religious tract. Not really worth watching, except as a Historical curiosity.

There's a nice essay on the TCM website about Dracula's Daughter about how it's always been considered second-rate, but in fact was quite innovative and foresaw many contemporary vampire tropes. At least I assume it must be on the website; it's on my app.

[stj]

Well, I was very young, so the lesbian rape scene made the movie far scarier than anything in Dracula. Or most other movies.

[Christopher]

Now I'm disappointed that I forgot to record Dracula's Daughter. Sounds like it was an innovative movie for its day.

I watched the rest of The Story of Mankind last night after all. Good grief, what a terrible ending. It contradicted the hell out of itself. Colman had finished his closing statement and Price was making his, but then Colman was allowed to interrupt Price's statement after a few sentences, refute him, and get the last word with Price not even protesting? Talk about a kangaroo court. And the "verdict" too.

They were trying to decide whether to intervene to save mankind or do nothing and let us be destroyed, and they decided to defer a decision until later? With the clock already ticking down to imminent doomsday, isn't that the same thing as deciding to let us be destroyed?

They didn't think this through very well, did they?

I have to say, though, I was impressed that the movie acknowledged the crimes and atrocities that Europeans inflicted upon the Native Americans, even though it embraced conventional stereotypes and myths of colonization in other respects. Sure, they put those words in the Devil's mouth, but the film was using him as a vehicle for commenting on humanity's sins, and his assessments of what qualified as evil and vile were treated as legitimate; he just approved of how evil and vile they were. So there was a bit of progressive sentiment there, more than I expected.

Still, the only thing that made this piece of dreck worthwhile was getting to listen to Vincent Price at his malevolent best for two hours. Ronald Colman was pretty good too. And Groucho Marx managed to be funny even with the lame material he was given. Most of the rest of the celebrity guests did quite badly, though. It seems Allen was directing them to be as broad and campy as possible -- or else that they just showed up for a day or two to earn a quick buck and didn't put any effort into it.

[Mr. Adventure]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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There's a nice essay on the TCM website about Dracula's Daughter about how it's always been considered second-rate, but in fact was quite innovative and foresaw many contemporary vampire tropes. At least I assume it must be on the website; it's on my app.

That is a nice essay.
http://moviemorlocks.com/2012/11/30/...er/#more-58129

[Greg Cox]

stj wrote:

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Well, I was very young, so the lesbian rape scene made the movie far scarier than anything in Dracula. Or most other movies.

What I find intriguing about that scene is the way the fig leaf of "vampirism" allowed Universal to get away with a "lesbian rape" scene in a way they never could have if they had stripped away the supernatural hugger-mugger.

Without the Dracula gimmick, you have a predatory older woman luring a vulnerable young woman up to her garrett to "pose" for her, getting her to disrobe, and then (vaguely) having her way with her. Hard to imagine a scene like that flying in a mainstream drama back in 1936--but it's okay in "Dracula's Daughter" because they can pretend that the Countess is only hungry for Lily's blood . . . .

("It's all about nutrition . . . really! Not sex!")

It's also amusing that generations of us kids grew up watching the show on the late show because, without a peep from our parents, because, on the surface, it's about a vampire, not a lesbian.

(Never mind that the whole plot is about a woman struggling with "unnatural" urges she can't control, to the extent that she consults a psychiatrist about it!)

I read somewhere that the censors insisted on a scene immediately afteward the garrett scene where a coroner explicitly states that poor Lily had her blood drained out--just so the audience wouldn't think that something else might have happened after the fade-out . . . .

[Klaus]

I'd agree w/everything Christopher said about Story of Mankind... the acknowledgment of crimes was the most worthwhile point. It was interesting that it was the Court of "Outer Space", not heaven.

And I didn't all of Dracula's Daughter but I did see that scene... hard to miss that vibe today, that's for sure.

[Greg Cox]

Klaus wrote:

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And I didn't all of Dracula's Daughter but I did see that scene... hard to miss that vibe today, that's for sure.

I wonder if it flew over the heads of the audiences back then, or if they picked up on the vibe, too . . . ?

[Christopher]

Klaus wrote:

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It was interesting that it was the Court of "Outer Space", not heaven.

I think they touched on that. "Outer space" was chosen as a neutral location for the hearing. At least, there was a line that Mr. Scratch couldn't have attended if the court had been in Heaven.