The Fall of the House of Usher

How about some unlikely pairings for today's review? Director/producer extraordinaire Roger Corman is the master of the B-movie across countless genres. What author/writer do you think he used as sources for eight of his movies? It's a name I would have never thought of if you gave me a week to think about it. That writer? A mildly well-known 19th century writer by the name of Edgar Allan Poe. His short story was the inspiration for 1960's The Fall of the House of Usher.

Riding out to a worn-down mansion on desolate land in New England, Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) is trying to find his fiance. When he arrives at the mansion, Winthrop is met by his fiance's menacing older brother, Roderick Usher (Vincent Price), who insists that Philip should just ride away and forget anything and everything about his fiance. He is dumbfounded at the thought and especially confused at Roderick's continuing insistence that he leave and have nothing to do with his younger sister, Madeline (Myrna Fahey), who similarly hasn't told Philip anything about her background or what Roderick is trying to hide. After almost non-stop badgering to find out exactly what's going on, Philip finally gets the truth. The house of Usher is cursed, and it's only a matter of time before Madeline finally cracks.

I read my fair share of Edgar Allan Poe in high school in English classes, but this short story -- originally published in 1939 -- was not one of them. 'Usher' comes from American International Pictures which had previously been known for cheap, black and white flicks made for double-bills and drive-in theaters. Not anymore with some money pumped into things courtesy of change of pace movies like this. I watched it on the MGM HD channel, and my goodness, it was a good-looking movie. Filmed completely on an indoor set with a small cast, 'Usher' is a small-scale, impending doom type of story. It's all about mood and that building sense of the twist to come. So...

Yeah, it never really clicks, not for me at least. I was expecting more from a Corman film working off a screenplay from Richard Matheson with Vincent Price in the lead. It's a short movie at just 79 minutes long (some versions are slightly longer), but it feels much, much longer. Not having read Poe's short story, I can't criticize what did or didn't make the jump but for all the mood and tension building, 'Usher' is surprisingly dull. How many times can Damon's Philip ask the same questions without getting any real answers about the supposedly cursed Usher family? Maybe I was expecting a bigger, better twist when it is revealed, but nearing the hour-mark I had pretty much checked out. Winthrop arrives at the house, talks to Roderick, hangs out, has some mysterious conversations about the Usher family and its background and just persistently sticks around. Meh, I'll pass as it never really comes together.

So there is some recognizable names here with a cast that totals just four speaking parts. Vincent Price is one of the masters of the horror genre and is always a welcome addition to a cast. Here, his Roderick Usher -- rocking a platinum blonde haircut -- is far from his best work. He chews the scenery like his paycheck depended on it as his different ailments wear him down from his sensitive hearing and sense of smell to his intense dislike of being touched. It's an oddball part for sure, one I didn't quite know what to make of. A rising star who never quite became a star, Damon is more on edge here in an uncomfortable, awkward part. Maybe because we're dropped into the story with no real background, but his love for Madeline seems a little much, especially when Roderick starts spouting off about the Usher curse and all that fun stuff. You know, if curses on your wife bother you.

As the seemingly cursed Madeline, Fahey is all right but underused as a key character who just isn't on-screen enough to leave much of an impression. And because every possibly haunted mansion in the country needs a doorman and butler, Harry Ellerbe plays Bristol, the oft-maligned houseman for the Usher home, always looking worried and always trying Philip to bail.

It isn't the big twist or revelation that works in the final act here in 'Usher.' It's more of a surprise that Price's Roderick has for Philip. The reveal of that surprise does work, but it gets lost late as some supernatural family hijinks take over. A disappointment overall. I'm not a huge horror fan, but this one sure sounded like it had some potential only to fall short in the end.

The Fall of the House of Usher (1960): * 1/2 /****

Screaming Eagles

Thanks to the Stephen Ambrose book and the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks produced miniseries Band of Brothers, the 101st Airborne Division has become synonymous with WWII.  History buffs and casual fans alike are aware of the famous division that played such a large role in the European theater following the D-Day invasion all the way until the end of the war. The miniseries is one of the all-time greats, and one that any history fan will enjoy.  It is of course not the only story of the division out there, just the most well known.

Countless WWII stories set in the European theater of war have mentioned the division and their exploits, like Battleground, Saving Private Ryan, and The Longest Day.  Some are just glancing encounters as these paratroopers navigate through the hell of the Normandy invasion or some six months later at the siege at Bastogne.  Wherever it is set though and whatever the situation, it's hard not to appreciate their acts of bravery and courage of these men.  A little movie from 1956 was one of the first to tell their story, its title dedicated to the division's nickname, Screaming Eagles. 

It is early June 1944, and Privates Mason (Tom Tryon) and Corliss (Martin Milner) arrive at their new unit at a camp in England, D Company from a battalion in the 101st Airborne Division. Standoffish from the get-go, the always ready to fight Mason quickly alienates himself from his squad mates.  The rest of the squad wants him transferred, but the platoon commander, Lt. Pauling (Jan Merlin), wants to do otherwise. He knows the invasion of Europe is coming soon, and that every man will be needed. Pauling convinces the men to give Mason another chance and tells the troublesome private to get in line.  Then the orders come through, the 101st will be dropped inland of Normandy, Pauling's platoon receiving an assignment to hold a key bridge along the road to the beach. Their past personal problems aside, Mason and the platoon gear up for the coming fight.

I've mentioned before that a movie can be generally forgotten over the years. A good clue is to look at a movie's IMDB page. Click on the left where a typical movie is chock full of little tidbits about the movie, anything ranging from quotes to cast to business and trivia.  'Screaming' has little to nothing. It is a small budget, B-movie from director Charles F. Haas that clocks in at just 79 minutes. My first reaction was that it was a TV show from the 1950s edited into a movie that could have been released in theaters. Nope, just a small movie.  It certainly has the look of a TV show, but what are you going to do? There's nothing really special about the movie, but it's good enough. Ringing endorsement if there ever was one, huh?

Reading about this movie when it popped up on TCM's schedule, I was intrigued by the cast. There weren't big names, but there were a lot of recognizable names. Some of these names didn't even ring a bell, but as I look through their filmography, I recognize quite a lot of them from the other movies they starred in (if nothing else).  Tryon had a quick window in the late 1950s and early 1960s where he was in movies and TV, starring here as troublemaker Pvt. Mason.  He's somewhat wooden, and his character motivations as to why he's such an ass are never really explained. Merlin is especially good as Lt. Pauling, the officer just trying to keep his men together as the well-trained unit they are. Other members of the platoon include Mark Damon and Robert Blake (but look quick or you'll miss them), Pat Conway, Paul Burke, Alvy Moore, and Joe Di Reda.

With a movie that isn't even 90 minutes long though, an obvious problem occurs.  An introductory title card explains this is the story of 15 men and their exploits in WWII.  Okay, fair enough, a story about 15 paratroopers.  Most of them are never identified though....until after they're dead.  Another soldier states "Oh, they got Hernandez" and that's it.  I realize with a 79-minute B-movie that character development and fleshing out all the roles isn't the most important thing, but even a token effort would have been appreciated. Lt. Pauling reciting off the names of the killed members of the platoon would have registered a little bit then.

For a pretty straightforward war story, I enjoyed 'Screaming' once the paratroopers actually dropped into Normandy.  One officer is killed almost immediately, and Lt. Pauling is blinded when a gun goes off in his eyes. Mason is placed in charge of being his watchdog, guiding the officer wherever they go. The story again is not developed much there, but it gives Mason a chance to amount to something, to see that this doesn't have to be a one-man war. He can't just look out for himself. He has to watch out for the men around him too.  I liked the movie though, and if you can catch it again on TCM's schedule, it's worth a watch.

Screaming Eagles (1956): ** 1/2 /**** 

Johnny Yuma

For every Clint Eastwood or Lee Van Cleef that became international stars because of the spaghetti western craze of the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were many others who never quite hit it as big.  There were over 500 spaghetti westerns made, and someone had to star in them, right? So as I mentioned in my review of 1966's The Texican (and a few others probably), has-been stars and up and coming actors often turned to Europe for film roles. One of those was American actor Mark Damon, a supporting player in Hollywood who through a dozen or so spaghetti westerns got more stardom than he ever would have back in the states.

None of Damon's ventures into the Italian westerns are considered true classics, including 1966's Johnny Yuma, an entertaining if unspectacular western. See enough westerns (or any genre for that matter), and you're going to start seeing the same stories over and over again with a few tweaks here and there.  What separates the 'been there, seen that' from the unique is being able to put a new spin on those things you have seen in the past.  Director Romolo Guerrieri does just enough different to make this spaghetti western worth watching.

Riding west after receiving a letter from his uncle with a request to run the family ranch, gunslinger Johnny Yuma (Damon) looks to have hit the jackpot.  But as he nears the ranch, he finds a wanted poster for the man who killed his uncle.  Johnny smells a rat and is convinced that something else is going on.  He's right.  His uncle's young wife, Samantha (Rosalba Neri), conspired with her brother, Pedro (Luigi Vannucchi) to murder Johnny's uncle and set someone else up in the process. Avenging his uncle's death and getting the ranch back in the process, Johnny has to tangle with a small army of gunmen Samantha sent after him in hopes of finishing him off.  The gunmen are one worry, but an infamous gunfighter, Linus Carradine (American TV actor Lawrence Dobkin), is also on his trail.

The main characters in spaghetti westerns allowed for certain extravagances in behavior and wardrobe -- Clint Eastwood's poncho, Yul Brynner's cigar-filled magazines, and many others -- but Damon is duded up to look like the ultimate gay caballero to me.  It isn't Damon's fault, but for starters Johnny Yuma isn't the greatest character.  He's not quite the steely-eyed killer and not a comedic punchline, instead he's somewhere in between. He's always wearing bright shirts (red, yellow, green), a vest with what looks like silver conches as buttons, the shirts are unbuttoned down to his stomach to show off his hairy chest, and he wears a silver dollar on a chain around his neck. I'm not saying anything, but...I'm just saying.  Still, Damon is the least of the movie's concerns.  He makes the most of the character that requires him to kill a lot of baddies, bed down a few ladies, and tear up when the little kid dies.

Criticisms of spaghetti westerns are all over the place, too violent, too stupid, too much humor, feels like an American western.  Oddly enough, all those criticisms are valid for this one movie.  It's all those complaints rolled into one movie! The violence isn't graphic, but in the finale Johnny and Carradine (differences pushed aside and teamed up) gun down wave after wave of nameless henchmen. On top of that, Johnny manages to bounce around the abandoned village like a kid on a sugar high getting the villain to empty his gun.  He also gets a cowardly Mexican sidekick (Fidel Gonzales) who is apparently around for laughs. The story does feel like an American western, but in a good way. And that's where the positive recommendation comes in.

In westerns, women are too often used as bait for the hero to save. Helpless, whiny, and all around unnecessary. There's two solutions in my mind, make them strong, heroic characters on their own, or the more fun option...make them villains.  Neri's Samantha is a great example of what a female villain in a western can be.  This is where the movie rises above the norm of what's so often in run-of-the-mill westerns.  It's Samantha pulling the strings on all the dupes around her as her plan comes together.  In the vein of a Lee Van Cleef character, Dobkin is also a bright spot as the aged gunfighter Carradine.  He's a good counter to Damon's Yuma in the same way Van Cleef was to Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More.  I still don't understand why Dobkin and Damon switch holsters midway through the story other than the story requires some general confusion, but there's too much else going on to linger there.

Now for all the fun little elements that make these spaghetti westerns -- even the bad ones -- memorable.  Composer Nora Orlandi turns in a solid score that resembles a Morricone score, but not in the obvious knock-off fashion so many other composers use. There is also a truly awful theme song (listen HERE) that is so downright bad that it ends up being great.  I defy you not to have it rattling around in your head in the days following your first watch.  It's that good kind of awful, the song where you know you shouldn't like it, but do anyways.  The Almerian locations are wide-ranging with some familiar spots around every corner.  So how do I rate it? Not a particularly good western, but an entertaining one.  Barely gets a positive rating, but barely still counts.

Johnny Yuma (1966): ** 1/2 /****