By Matt Singer
April 7, 2004
The movie news of the week seems to be Jack Black's casting as opposite Naomi Watts in Peter Jackson's upcoming KING KONG remake. I've got no problem with the casting, and I think after the feat that was the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, you've got to at least give Jackson some benefit of the doubt even if you don't care for Black. What I want to know is why isn't Black starring as King Kong himself? I'd pay for a movie ticket to see a Kong did that weird arm-flapping dance that Black does when he performs with Tenacious D. Mr. Jackson, if you're reading, it's not too late. Just think about it.
THE GOOD
THE MAN WITH NO NAME TRILOGY (1964, 1965, 1966)
Starring Clint Eastwood, Various
Directed by Sergio Leone
Rated R, 99, 130, & 180 minutes
Available on VHS & DVD
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Yes, one of these three Sergio Leone / Clint Eastwood Westerns provides the name for this column. But, believe it or not, when I started "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly" on another website four years ago, I hadn't even seen the movie. It's a daunting flick to be sure; a grim, three hour Western set against the backdrop of the Civil War. But all three films in "The Man With No Name Trilogy" by Leone - A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, and especially THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY are outstanding. They aren't just great Westerns, they're great movies, period.
Influential too; watching them now you can see how large an impact these films have had on the film culture for the last thirty years. Leone's unmistakable framings; widescreen with tight, chin-to-brow close ups, have become the standard in literally dozens of action films every summer. And Eastwood character's - deadly, dubious, quiet yet witty - became an archetype for Eastwood's entire acting career, not to mention those of plenty others (it's hard to imagine Steven Seagal having an acting career if he hadn't had a lifetime of Clint performances to rip off). Leone predated the 70s auteurs and anticipated the Hollywood obsession with franchises. In fact, one could say that these movies influenced just about every aspect of action cinema except the Western since, as Elvis Mitchell put it in the New York Times recently, you simply could not top THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY, and you wouldn't want to try.
The definitive moment of the trilogy comes in FISTFULL OF DOLLARS, when The Man With No Name, actually named Joe in this picture (he is called different things in each film), arrives in town and is cruelly mocked and shot at by some hoodlums. After learning of the stalemate between two rival gangs fighting for power in the lawless town, Joe heads to undertaker, grimly requesting, "Get three coffins ready." He approaches the hoods and demands an apology for their laughing at his mule. "You see, my mule don't like people laughing," he says, dead serious. Even though he is outnumbered four to one, Joe draws quicker than his opponents and shoots them all dead in their boots. He turns, and quietly walks away. Passing the mortician again going the other direction he removes the gnawed end of a cigar from his mouth and notes "My mistake, four coffins."
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE is probably the least seen of the trilogy but it's the unsung hero of the set, providing an important transition between the more traditional good-bad dynamics of FISTFULL (where Good Clint battles a whole mess a bad guys) and THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY (where Clint's "Good" isn't all that much better than Lee Van Cleef's "Bad" or Eli Wallach "Ugly"). In A FEW DOLLARS MORE, The Man With No Name finds himself competing for a bounty with a more experienced hunter, Col. Mortimer (also played by Van Cleef, in a different role). The complexity of the morality here is what makes the conflict so juicy; the battle over the bounty between The Man With No Name and Mortimer builds to a nighttime shootout where the two show off their ample gunfighting skills by shooting each other's hats around. After a few minutes of stalemating the two are so begrudgingly impressed with each other's skills they have no choice but to give up and go eat dinner together.
Of course, THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY, is the Western to end all Westerns. Something of a prequel to the first two films, it follows The Man With No Name and two other outlaws on the trail of a fortune in Union gold. Each of the men has a portion of the location of the money and so the three must reluctantly work together to find it. Unfortunately, all three hate, distrust, and generally want to kill one another. This one has even more classic dialogue, including the very famous scene where Eli Wallach, as all-around scoundrel Tuco, shoots someone trying to get the jump on him while he's in the bath. Thinking he's caught Tuco with his pants down, so to speak, he rambles on and on about his victory. Eventually, Tuco pulls out a hidden pistol and shoots the man dead. "When you have to shoot, shoot! Don't talk!" he yells at the freshly-minted corpse. Seen in a theater, that's the line that generally evokes the most applause.
Roger Ebert defines a classic as a movie you can't imagine never being able to see again. It's a great definition of the term that applies to most of the movies covered in "The Good" part of this column, and it certainly applies to Leone's DOLLARS trilogy. For one thing, I would be out of a column title without it.
IF YOU LIKED THE TRILOGY, CHECK OUT: DIRTY HARRY (1971), with Eastwood at the height of his badassiosity as "Dirty" Harry Callahan, the cop who won't take "I surrender!" as an answer. Not only a great cop movie, but a disturbingly convincing argument for the creation of a fascist police state.
THE BAD
GOING OVERBOARD (1989)
Starring Adam Sandler, Burt Young
Directed by Valerie Breiman
Rated R, 99 minutes.
Available on VHS & DVD
GOING OVERBOARD is ranked #13 on the IMDb's Bottom 100 Movies of all Time, just between GIGLI and THE PUMAMAN (which is actually an enjoyable piece of a crap, but nevermind). On my own list of the worst movies, it would probably rank just below AN ALAN SMITHEE FILM as the most reprobate film in history. I'm a marginal Adam Sandler fan; I've liked some of his movies (HAPPY GILMORE, THE WEDDING SINGER) and disliked others (THE WATERBOY, BIG DADDY), but even the very worst of the rest of his filmography, edited together into a fifteen hour epic would be far more entertaining than GOING OVERBOARD by a wide margin.
Right from the get-go things are bad. Burt Young (The bald buddy in the ROCKY series) plays General Noriega, who decides that amongst a pile of pornography tapes, he'd rather watch something called "The Unsinkable Shecky Moskowitz" which unfolds before his (and, sadly, our) eyes. Bad move General! Sure something like his other choice, "Rub Me Raw," may have been sleazy, tasteless, and completely lacking in erotic content. But at least it would have contained more laughs and a better plot than "Shecky," which is about as funny as a 6 hour speech on why you should buy a timeshare. Even the credits for OVERBOARD are wrong. What does the one that reads "Adam Sandler as GOING OVERBOARD!" mean?
The rest of the action in GOING OVERBOARD takes place aboard a cruise ship filled with beauty pageant contestants. Shecky, played by Sandler, talks directly to the camera as he arrives at the boat and tells us that the filmmakers had a boat full of women and some cameras and figured - what the hell! - let's make a terrible movie. Having the ability to make a movie is no excuse for making one, even one this bad. I had the ability to strangle the former roommate of mine who accused me of being an abnormal human being, but that doesn't mean I went and did it. No, I had the tact and restraint to urinate in his coffee cup when he wasn't looking. GOING OVERBOARD could learn a lesson or two from my good manners.
To be honest, I'd rather not recount more of the plot, because it would be a monumental waste of both of our times. I will say though that I rather liked the point in the film where General Noriega sent some goons to go find the woman who insulted him on the tape of "The Unsinkable Shecky Moskowitz." Soon Noriega is watching his own men on the television, running around the cruise ship with machine guns. Oh and bravo to Billy Zane for willingly playing Neptune, the god of the sea, in a blue, gauzy blouse and short shorts. And to Milton Berle for proving there is no depth he won't sink to, in a scene where he gives Shecky, a terrible standup comedian, some jokes to use in his act. For Berle, infamous for stealing material from other comedians, this was some sort of karmic payback.
I bought GOING OVERBOARD off the clearance rack of the video store. It was only 99 cents; if I'd rented it, it would have set me back at least two dollars. I had no interest in owning the film, but sheer economics compelled me to buy it. I couldn't understand why a video store would rather sell you a film than rent it to you, so that when you return it, they could rent it to other customers. After watching the toxic GOING OVERBOARD, I've got a better idea why.
INSTEAD OF GOING OVERBOARD, CHECK OUT: PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002), the collaboration between Sandler and director P.T. Anderson. A love it or hate it movie if ever there was one, but I, for one, loved it.
THE UGLY
QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1958)
Starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eric Fleming
Directed by Edward Bernds
Unrated, 80 minutes
Available on VHS
There's so much fun stuff going on in QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE I don't know where to begin. A confusing mix of science-fiction and prison films with a heavy dose of disturbing, outdated sexual politics, QUEEN suggests that there is intelligent life on other planets, all of it easily excitable, fetchingly-dressed women. The planet Venus is just loaded with such gorgeous gals, itching for a stranded spaceman to come along and lighten up their meager existence. I guess the old saying really is correct: "Men are from MARS NEEDS WOMEN, women are from QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE."
A group of intrepid officers in a futuristic space army (in the year 1985) take off in their rocketship, carrying a scientist to a very important space station. On their way to the station, their ship is attacked by a mysterious beam of light that bounces around the screen and annoys our heroes with its unending, shrill tone. Eventually they are hit, sent careening off course through space, crash landing on Venus. Previously thought uninhabited (not to mention uninhabitable), it turns out the planet is teaming with babes! Before you can say "space herpes" our heroes think they've really hit the jackpot.
Ah ha, but there's a catch! Turns out these ladies aren't very welcoming hosts; they brandish powerful laser weapons and imprison our manly, burly, and did I mention manly heroes at the behest of their Queen, Yllana (Laurie Mitchell). The curvy Queen hides her mask with a face, but no one knows why. The women speculate that it is because the queen is extremely beautiful, but when she tries to seduce Captain Neal Patterson (Eric Fleming) we see that her face is horribly disfigured with radiation burns. That's a much better reason to wear a mask than being really, really attractive.
Eventually, the imprisoned men are helped by a scientist named Talleah, played through a confused haze of barely-there acting by Zsa Zsa Gabor. Turns out Queen Yllana killed all the men of Venus and assumed control of the planet when the dumb men kept waging wars with other planets and causing trouble. Problem is, Yllana killed or banished all the men and now Talleah and her followers are jonesing for a little action. So they help Capt. Patterson and his men escape if they'll help overthrow Yllana and also make out with them a little. As she puts it, "We are nothing here without love!" You can imagine Capt. Patterson's response.
It continues from there. The conceit of QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE, repeated several times is that, in the eyes of the confused, late 1950s men who wrote this film, women are nothing without men to protect them, to help them, to sleep with them, and so on. And the doofy astronauts on Capt. Patterson's crew are guilty of pushing this theory throughout the film through some outrageously sexist comments. When the men and Talleah confront Yllana, she explains their revolt by remind Yllana that even though she may have a hideous disfigured face and can't get any action, the other ladies want some loving. "A woman needs a man's love! Women cannot be happy without men!" Zsa Zsa's Talleah tells her. "You're so right, babe!" one of the men responds.
Proving that the clothes may make the man, but not the movie, the crewmen in QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE wear uniforms identical to those from 1956's FORBIDDEN PLANET. Fleming, who plays the Leslie Nielsen part, even bears a very strong resemblance to Nielsen. But while FORBIDDEN PLANET was a complicated, well-made science fiction picture, QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE threatens to run off the logic rails in just about every scene. This is a society of women who despise men and all their flaws, but remain clothed in the short-skirts and high heels that men liked to see them in (even the female soldiers wear heels - which makes the scenes where they clumsily run after the men very funny). Also, someone decided it'd be a good idea for the astronauts to be on first-name basis, rather than using their ranks or last names. Instead of people asking "Capt. Patterson" for a favor, it's "Hey Neal - could you do me a favor?" It's not "Lt. Turner" who can't keep his lips off his alien lover, it's Larry ("Larry, holster those things!"). These geniuses' plan to take out Yllana involve disguising Talleah in the queen's clothes and mask and having her give the troops orders. Have you ever heard Zsa Zsa's accent? Somehow, no one notices that the Venusian queen has suddenly adopted a thick Hungarian accent.
On and on and on. QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE is both a sidesplitting ugly movie and a confused look at sexual politics by a bunch of guys who clearly feared that women were slowly taking over society. Thankfully all these space babes needed, we're told, were a few good men. As Lt. Larry says, "26 million miles from earth, and the little dolls are still the same!" Well put Larry.
IF YOU LIKED QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE, CHECK OUT: ALIENS (1986) for a look at a real ass-kicking alien-fighting woman. And Sigourney Weaver is way hotter than Zsa Zsa.
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