Okay, let’s start with a quick recap of the “rules”, shall we? The basic idea here is to take a movie that is out in theaters now, and pair it up with another movie from the 1980s or before. Sometimes the connection will be obvious, and sometimes it’ll be a little less so, but that’s part of the fun.
Ever since I saw his first feature, Brick, I have been a fan of Rian Johnson. For those who may not be familiar with that flick, it’s a pretty great neo-noir set in a high school, that not only hets the trappings of the genre right, but also the atmosphere of desperation and inevitability that, for me, is a hallmark of a good noir.
That’s why I’m truly looking forward to seeing what he does this week when he returns to his mystery roots with Knives Out. All you have to do is look back at some of my previous posts to see how much of a fan I am of the “old dark house” style mystery – you know the kind I mean, where all the suspects are stuck for one reason or another in one setting and it’s up to the detective (sometimes a professional, sometimes an amateur, often just one of the guests) to put all the pieces together and solve the crime before it’s too late and everyone else (or they themself) winds up dead.
As always, there are a few ways to go when looking for a pairing for this double feature. We could go back to the beginning, and the movie which gave the genre it’s name:
We could go the Agatha Christie route:
Or, we could always go with the most popular comedy version
If it fit within the “rules”, I probably would have gone with this one
But instead, I decided to go with an earlier comedy version. 1976’s Murder by Death, written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore is a parody not only of the old dark house style, but also of the various detective tropes that had sprung up over the years.
The movie features Truman Capote in the host role as Lionel Twain, who has invited five of the world’s greatest detectives and their relatives/assistants to his mansion for an evening of “dinner and a murder”. The detectives include Peter Falk as Sam Diamond, a take-off of the hard-boiled detective (the name is just a bit too point-on, but hey… honestly, this ain;t what you’d call a…. ummm… subtle film), Elsa Lanchester as Jessica Marbles, (the Agatha Christie Miss Marples stand-in), James Coco as Christie;s Hercule Poirot… I mean as Milo Perrier, David Niven and Maggie Smith as Dick and Dora Charleston, the Nick and Nora Charles (from the Thin Man series) knockoffs, and…
Yeah, here’s where we get to the problematic part. The fifth detective is Sidney Wang, who is based on Earl Del Biggers’ Charlie Chan. As you’ll see in the trailer, Wang is portrayed by Peter Sellers in full yellow-face and of course full pigeon English, and there’s just no getting around it. It is a terrific send-up of the character type, (one would expect nothing less from an actor as talented as Sellers), but at the same time, it’s definitely a product of its time, and I certainly understand that it will be a deal-breaker for some.
If it’s not, however, then I do highly recommend Murder by Death. It’s not the best of its kind, (look above to see the two that I think are), and some of the laughs may not land if you’re not familiar with the characters being parodied, but it is entertaining, and at just over 90 minutes, doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Here’s your trailer:
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of Dan Curtis and especially of his TV series Dark Shadows and The Night Stalker. As a matter of fact, a few years back I wrote extensively about the latter, covering not only 
To call The Norlisss Tapes a rip-off of The Night Stalker is a bit unfair (can you really rip yourself off?), but there are certainly similarities between the two. Instead of being an investigative reporter like Stalker‘s Carl Kolchack, Tapes‘ protagonist David Norliss (played by Roy Thinnes, at the time probably best known for his role in The Invaders) is a book writer researching – and along the way debunking -the supernatural. They both show an inclination for recording/narrating their adventures on audiotape. They both run afoul of disbelieving lawmen, etc. etc. The biggest difference between the two is that whereas The Night Stalker had a more lighthearted – at times almost comedic – sense to it, Norliss plays the horror straightforward, definitely going for the chills.
Anyway, just to touch a bit on the plot, the movie opens with a telephone call between Norliss and his publisher during which the titular character begs him for a meeting. When Norliss doesn’t show, the publisher becomes worried, and when it becomes obvious that he has disappeared, he decides to investigate. Upon arriving at Norliss’s house, he finds a series of tapes, supposedly containing the narration of the book, and he decides to listen to them in order to try to find out what might have happened to the missing writer.
The always lovely Angie Dickinson plays a woman who awakens to find her home being invaded by a figure who appears to be her dead husband. He has already killed her dog, and begins to come after her. Fortunately she’s able to grab a shotgun, and in a very explosive P.O.V. shot shoots him at point blank range. However when the police get there, the only thing they find is the dead dog. Not only is there no other body, there isn’t even any other blood.
In the end, it’s pretty easy to see why NBC wound up taking a pass on making this into an ongoing series. Thinnes’s Norliss really doesn’t display any of the charm or personality of Darren McGavin’s Kolchack, and the show in general just seems flat compared to a lot of Curtis’s other offerings. As a one-off it’s okay, but mostly forgettable, (which may be why it’s mostly forgotten today) and with The Niight Stalker already on the air and covering what would likely be most of the same ground that Norliss would pursue – let’s be honest, there’s only so much that can be done with a monster of the week show, though it would have had the advantage of the overarching “What’s actually happened to David?” subplot – it seems like it wouldn’t be long before the show simply ran out of tapes and ran aground.
When I first heard the title Ford v Ferrari, I have to admit I had no idea at all what the movie was about. Probably some kind of Fast and Furious rip-off was my first thought.
With John Frankenheimer in the director’s chair shooting in 70mm Super Panavision, 1966’s Grand Prix may not be the best racing movie ever made, but no one can deny that it is full of stars and spectacle. The cast includes Eve Maries Saint, Brian Bedford, Yves Montaud, Jessica Walter, Antonio Sabato, and Toshiro Mifune, along with cameos from real-life race drivers such as Phil Hill, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, and Jack Brabham. It also features footage that was shot during actual races on the F1 circuit.
Let’s face it: evil little kids in horror films, especially when they have that just-that-much-off giggle, are especially creepy, and never more so than in Mario Bava’s eerily atmospheric creeper Kill, Baby… Kill.
Bewilderingly, while performing the autopsy, Dr. Paul and Monica discover that a silver coin has been embedded in the dead woman’s heart. Fortunately Monica has an explanation… or at least a reason – you see, the people of the area have a saying: “only with money in the heart can one who dies a violent death find peace”. And obviously if you have a saying like that, you also have a way to get that money into the heart without leaving a trace.
Coming back downstairs, the doctor spies upon a ritual which is designed to keep away evil spirits and apparently involves stripping the young girl and beating her with a branch. Preventative medicine at its finest, obviously.
From this point on, the madness just escalates as the Baroness is obviously being haunted by a little girl who also confronts the doctor on his way out. She has a nasty giggle and a little ball that she likes to bounce down the hallways, leading the doctor on a merry chase.
Of course, we’re all familiar with the concept of the soap opera. It’s a serial, either daily or weekly, that usually dramatizes (often overly so) the lives of a generally small group of people linked to gether in some way. They might live in the same city, work together in a hospital, or even just be members of the same family. The daily soaps especially are known for their rushed production and generally lower production values than night time programming, but they still have an incredible number of followers who will make it “appointment tv” to make sure they don’t miss their “stories”.
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