The Devil's Man (1967)

Destro was easily my favorite of the G.I. Joe cartoon characters.  Here was a guy who wasn’t afraid to wear a high-collared, padded jumpsuit.  He had cool weapons, including wrist rockets attached to his metal gauntlets.  He was, per the original file card by comic book writer Larry Hama located on the back of his action figure’s packaging, an unknown.  He had no name other than Destro, no one knew where he came from, and no one (with one exception) knew what he actually looked like.  It wasn’t until later that he got a name (James McCullen Destro) and a place of birth (Scotland).  Whether these things were known or not at the time of the character’s creation, he works better (as most things do) with the mystery intact, in my opinion.  He had one of the best cartoon voices this side of the original Starscream and Cobra Commander (both played by Chris Latta), especially since, at least retroactively, he was a white Scottish fella with a black man’s voice (the great Arthur Burghardt).  Kind of reminds me of Darth Vader in that regard.  Plus, he got to bang The Baroness, the leather-constricted, Eastern-European-accented femme fatale who undoubtedly launched many a young boy on their way to puberty (she was the only one who knew Destro’s actual identity at the time; a small club to be a member of, to be certain).  More than all that, Destro wore a shiny, silver mask at all times in public (and, I like to imagine, sometimes in the boudoir) and it would even move with his mouth when he spoke; that’s some flexible metal.  He was like a luchador without the tights (for better or worse), a badass baldy with a penchant for destruction and mayhem, and if you saw him coming, you were as good as dead.  The Professor (Giancarlo Cianfriglia) in Paolo Bianchini’s The Devil’s Man (aka Devilman Story) also wears a metal mask, though his looks more like one of the robots from the Doctor Who story The Robots of Death, just without the molded hair.  He also doesn’t have wrist rockets, and there’s nary a Baroness-esque figure to be found.  More’s the pity.

In an ultra-abrupt prologue, some guy escapes from a desert lair.  Next thing we know, we’re watching a bunch of planes landing in Rome.  On one of these ubiquitous Pan Am flights is Professor Becker (Bill Vanders) and his daughter/assistant Christine (Luisa Baratto), who are there for some top-secret meetings and such.  Becker goes missing, and this is the cue for Mike (Guy Madison), a two-fisted journo, to enter the picture.  Together, Mike and Christine set off to locate Becker and stop the villains in their tracks.

The Devil’s Man is essentially two films in one.  The first of these is a hardboiled private eye story, wherein Mike isn’t afraid to get his knuckles dirty to get the info he needs.  He’s squarely in the Mike Hammer mold: tough, cynical, and an opportunistic manipulator.  When he’s introduced in what I’ve taken to calling a “meet cruel,” he completely ignores Christine and any of the panic or horror she’s experiencing and instead inspects a crime scene for clues (Bianchini points these clues out to us by having the camera zoom in on them as Mike discovers them).  Later, he blatantly uses Christine as bait, unbeknownst to her.  He’s not above hanging a guy out of a car to extract information from him, either.  In other words, Mike’s a prick, but this type of character has a certain sort of appeal in how forthrightly prick-ish he is.  At least he’s honest about it.  Christine is a damsel in distress, pure and simple.  She exists in this film to give Mike someone to kiss and rescue.  The funny thing about the mystery angle of the film is that, while we’re given clues along with Mike, we’re not given any context to connect them together.  It’s like a jigsaw puzzle missing the corner pieces: you still get the picture, but it’s just a little bit harder to put together.

The second half of the film is a gonzo, Eurospy, science fiction narrative that livens things up a bit (but only a bit) with some interesting elements.  In line with the Professor’s personal visual aesthetic (and, by extension, his modestly budgeted super-science laboratory), is the facet of the loss of humanity.  His big plan is to create human robots (more or less).  This, of course, means that any personality his subjects had before experimentation vanishes.  Like the Professor’s expressionless facade (which hides, but we are never shown, a horribly disfigured face, thus matching the inhumanity on the interior to both of his exteriors [flesh and metal]), there will be nothing left in his subjects, living machines with no free will.  As he states, “Science goes far beyond physical desires.”  He also tells Christine that she must “surrender [her] will to [his].”  For the Professor, the human brain is so imperfect that he is even willing to further dehumanize himself by planting a mechanical brain in his own body.  There’s a bit of a sleazy component added to all this when Mike is tempted with the possibility of sex with Yasmin (Diana Lorys), an experimentee who is now simply a sex slave.  After refusing, Kew (Luciano Pigozzi), the Professor’s greasy little assistant, suggests that he will gladly have his way with her later.  The film’s villains may believe in “science at all costs” and the obliteration of individuality, but their motivations are rooted much more in the very human desires lying at our base levels (namely, sex and power).

For as intriguing as The Devil’s Man threatens to become, it’s overall execution deprives it of any real impact or enjoyability.  It’s sloppy in its editing, its story is contrived as all hell, and the lead characters come off as flat jerks rather than compelling people (or even compelling archetypes).  Its few moments of brilliance are wasted by remaining largely undeveloped, sparking a smattering of ideas and then dropping them just to get to the end.  As a curio, the film should be a seen as an extremely minor point in the Eurospy constellation that tries to mix things up a bit, like oil and water.  Nevertheless, it’s by no means essential, and it may very well leave you with the same blank expression as the one on the Professor’s visage.

MVT:  The pulpier elements spice things up a little bit, but it could have used a dash more of these along with some complimentary flavors.  It’s an okay stew that could have been a great stew.  Now I’m hungry.

Make or Break:  There’s enough travelogue footage, especially once the characters get to Africa, to kill what pacing the film has not only by constantly being cut to but also by feeling like the exact same shot over and over again.

Score:  5/10    

The Vulture (1967)

Being a monster obsessed person for the majority of my youth (I blame King Kong mostly), I was, of course, also obsessed with dinosaurs (again, I blame King Kong).  There wasn’t a book concerning dinosaurs at my local library that I didn’t check out multiple times (including, but not limited to, Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals by Darlene Geis and R.F. Peterson, the book brandished by Harry Holcombe in King Kong Versus Godzilla).  Since dinosaurs are real-life monsters, I loved them all to some degree or another, even the goofier ones (come on, Diplodocus, what is up with you, anyway?).  Sure, I enjoyed the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex, but I was much more inclined toward something like the Anklyosaurus, with its death-tank-esque build (yes, I know they were herbivores). 

Another of my go-to dinosaurs was the bizarre Archeopteryx.  This beast wasn’t large and menacing like a T-Rex.  It wasn’t built like the proverbial brick shithouse.  It was essentially a small bird with the head of a thunder lizard.  And yet, it fascinated me, perhaps because of the duality of it, the overt evolutionary look of it.  Like with the Mighty Men and Monster Maker drawing toy (look it up) I spent way too much time with (yet somehow never enough), the Archeopteryx was a hodgepodge of lizard and bird, and the dichotomy of its two sides formed something of a gestalt for me.  Sure, this little guy would never dominate the dinosaur world, but it had its own place in the pecking order (sorry), and I think it’s an important one.  It’s the same attraction I had to films like Lawrence Huntington’s The Vulture (a film I was dying to see when it played on late night television back in the day).  However, the gap between expectation and reality with the Archeopteryx is much narrower for me than with this film.

Walking through a cemetery on a dark and stormy night, Ms. Ellen West (Annette Carrell) witnesses the grave of Francis Real open up (which we get to see) and unleash some monstrosity (which we don’t get to see) into the sky, cackling all the way.  The local Vicar (Philip Friend) doles out some convoluted back story about Real, his beloved pet bird (let’s just assume it’s a vulture), and his hatred for the Stroud family (oh, and a cask of gold coins).  Cue Eric Lutens (Robert Hutton), a “nuke-u-lar” scientist who has married into the Stroud family, and has a rather obsessive fascination with solving the mystery of what’s going on (the viewer does not have to strain as much to put this together, I assure you) before his family all wind up dead.

The primary theme this film focuses on is the idea of myths and superstitions.  The film’s opening sequence pretty much nails this home with the bus driver warning Ms. West not to walk across the fields and through the cemetery at night because of all the ghosts.  The story about Real and the Strouds is local folklore, and the people of the community have no problem believing that Real’s vengeance from beyond the grave can and will come to pass.  Eric posits that Real may have visited Easter Island at some point, because the indigenous people there have a myth about a bird man (Manutara, which, from what I was able to gather, is more of a sacred bird of the island than a cool monster/deity); some thin reasoning, to be sure.  What’s kind of interesting is that, for as much of a man of science as Eric claims to be, he’s pretty damned quick to suggest that an experiment must surely have created some monster bird (it is, after all, the most logical explanation; I mean, what else could possibly turn a woman’s hair white overnight?).  Equally interesting is Eric’s desire to find and kill the creature rather than study it (he is, after all, a horror film protagonist in the Sixties).  Some scientist.  But you get the feeling that Eric wants to believe in these things.  Sure, he plays around with “nuke-u-lar” power at his day job, but his heart’s desire is to explore the deeper mysteries of the world (read: monsters).  Tolferro, Cornwall, where the film is set, is to Eric, “where life goes on undisturbed.”  In other words, this is a place where monsters can exist, because pesky things like science aren’t as prevalent there as superstition is, and Eric buys right into it.  In this world, legends not only trump facts; they create reality.

The Vulture is one of those movies that for me brought up the eternal question, “what does the villain do when he is offscreen?”  Has this quandary ever occurred to you?  This is due largely in part to the structure of the narrative.  The antagonist means so little outside of his role as an occasional threat, and his actions are so curiously limited that you really have to wonder what else could possibly be occupying his time?  I mean, why doesn’t the titular monster simply take out the Stroud family in one fell swoop when he has them exposed?  The reason is because the film is segmented into vignettes whose sole purpose is to give us a cheap thrill and pick off characters individually so that the film isn’t just a half an hour long.  Sometimes in films like this, we’re given some specious reasoning as to why the villain doesn’t just slay his enemies all at once (he’s regrouping, he’s injured, he had to file his taxes, whatever).  With a film like this, however, the lack of any explanation sets the viewer’s mind adrift into the realm of pondering.

I have to say, I enjoyed the film’s first half, even with its lack of monster sightings (outside of some humongous prop bird legs) and its mountains of inane chatter.  There’s something about a film taking its time, trying to build a story and a sense of expectation for seeing its creature, that I enjoy immensely (even when the characters act like idiots).  That said, the endless dialogue scenes which leap to such far gone conclusions and are repeated so often in this film eventually wear thin.  Add to this the fact that there is absolutely no mystery as to who the monster is (this despite one of the reddest red herrings in the history of cinema which goes absolutely nowhere), and you’re left with nothing but the slog to finally see the fiend.  The kicker is that even when we do see him, we still don’t, and the overall effect is simultaneously weak and ridiculous (this in a film built upon ridiculousness).  The climax is anticlimactic enough (it just sort of happens), but what the characters do afterward in the film’s denouement is pretty baffling, even while the characters continue to talk and talk and dispense even more exposition.  And then the film just ends.  For as much as the film tries to do, it simply doesn’t pull it off, and yet, I still found myself okay with the vast majority of it.  Figure that one out.

MVT:  I really like the idea of an oddball monster like this one created through science and myth.  It’s an intriguing concept that provides the vast majority of The Vulture’s charm.

Make or Break:  In line with the MVT, I like the opening sequence for what it does while showing us almost nothing.  Had the rest of the movie been as clever (or at least less concerned with talking), it could have been something special.

Score:  6.25/10

Batwoman (1967)

It’s been said, often and (I believe) correctly, that an Action film’s most important feature is its villain’s plot.  Belloq and the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark want to use the titular artifact to defeat the Allies (and by extension, rule the world).  Megalon and Gigan want to conquer the world in the name of Seatopia in Godzilla Versus Megalon.  The Duke of New York wants to use the President of the United States in order to break himself and his followers out of Manhattan in Escape from New York (whether he wants to rule the world of not is debatable).   The more devious, intricate, and large-scale the scheme, the more heightened the stakes and the more defined the conflict between protagonist and antagonist.  Just look at almost any of the James Bond films for further evidence.  This is one reason why I enjoyed the recent Avengers: Age of Ultron, though the film has problems aplenty.  James Spader’s portrayal of the robot is spot on, menacing enough for a superhero film with enough of the actor’s affectations to make this viewer crave more screen time with his cinematic avatar, and his plan is something straight out of a comic book.  

Whether or not a villain is colorful or believes that what he/she is doing is right, how they go about doing it is a bit more important, in my opinion.  This is part of the reason why the Batman television series, which aired from 1966 to 1968, is so beloved.  It was completely removed from reality, focusing on and augmenting the camp aspects of its comic book origins (themselves at an apex of nuttiness at that time; witness the frequency of primate-centric stories at DC Comics, if you doubt me).  Further, the plots were usually just batshit (pun intended) insane.  Where else could you see a giant clam trying to eat a couple of guys in tight, brightly colored spandex (nothing Freudian there, I’m sure)?  And the histrionics of the villains were on a level of theatricality and farce so high, its nosebleeds got nosebleeds (especially as contrasted against the controlled, über-stoicism of the Dynamic Duo).  But people remember and love it to this day.  Naturally, then, imitators sprang out of the woodwork to cash in on this popularity, and Rene Cardona’s Batwoman (aka La Mujer Murcielago) is a prime example of a film’s reach exceeding its grasp in this regard.

The authorities are stymied by a string of murders worldwide, the most recent of which is wrestler El Rayo whose body is dragged out of the sea in Acapulco.  At the behest of Captain Mario Robles (Hector Godoy), the Batwoman (Maura Monti) is called in to assist by going undercover (but still in costume) at a local gym where many wrestlers train.  It’s soon discovered that the flagitious Dr. Eric Williams (Roberto Cañedo) is killing these men and extracting their pineal glands in order to create an army of Fish-Men!  Our intrepid heroes set about to foil Williams’ diabolical plan.  But first, some cocktails at the outdoor lounge.

One of the things this film does is illustrates the specific differences between movies produced in Hollywood and movies produced in other countries to cash in on them.  In Hollywood, this type of film is driven by its narrative, with each scene typically building on each previous scene until it reaches its climax.  In Batwoman, each scene is almost self-contained, and whether or not they actually relate to the film’s plot is almost an afterthought.  Thus, any scenes featuring interaction between the protagonists and the antagonists is as equally weighted as any other scene, importance notwithstanding.  This narrative isn’t built on escalating action but rather a constant, set level of involvement.  There is also a casual aspect to the scenes between action scenes, evidenced by the amount of time the main characters are shown nonchalantly discussing how fruitless their investigation is while slurping down drinks at a bar, or in some character’s den, or at a beach party where you almost think you can spot Eric Von Zipper in the background.  Some would call this lazy writing, and they would be right.  However, this easygoing attitude is part of the movie’s charm.  The travelogue-esque footage, the non-propulsive approach to the story, the informal exposition/happy hour scenes, the insertion of some luchadora wrestling, it all adds up to a relaxed perspective on itself, a flurry of fantasies for the viewer to behold, though they know they will likely never partake (sort of like the “White Telephone” films of the 1930s [white telephones being something most poor people could nary afford at the time], which were depictions of idealized societies and wish fulfillment for the lower classes).           

In the same way of the television phenomenon on which this film is patterned, there is a meta/self-reflexive edge to the filmmaking in Batwoman.  Many transitions are done via whip pan, a cheaper version of the swirling blur underneath the Bat symbol’s approach and retreat from the American Batman series.  Williams’ assistant (Jorge Mandragón), named Igor of course, places a gas mask over the camera lens, even though the person he is actually anesthetizing is about a foot and a half to his right.  Divers swim directly at the camera, menacing our heroine.  POV shots from Batwoman’s perspective show her swimming toward Williams’ boat (The Reptilicus, in case you were wondering).  When Batwoman peeks through a keyhole, we’re shown what she sees through a keyhole-shaped matte (an effect reportedly going all the way back to 1902’s What Happened to the Inquisitive Janitor).  This self-awareness of itself and of its production highlights an emphasis on performance in the film and particularly how its female heroine sees and is seen.  We’re meant to be in on it with the filmmakers, erasing any inclination we may have to treat the goings on seriously (difficult enough to do with a film titled Batwoman).  All of this is set to the hep, lounge stylings of Leo Acosta and his jazz combo, a surefire way to cement a film’s nonchalant coolness.  Like the Luchador movies featuring personalities like El Santo and Demonio Azul, it must be taken for granted that this is simply the world inhabited by these characters, and it is a world that disregards the whole for its parts.  After all, if you can’t put off the end of the world for a little rum and coke action every now and then, what’s the point?

MVT:  I’m just going to embrace my inner pig and give it to Maura Monti and her Batwoman character (maybe more her costumes, since her character is wafer thin).  She draws the eye to her no matter what she’s wearing (including some rather unflattering sweats and some very flattering swimwear), and the filmmakers knew enough to allow the camera to leer at her body at every available opportunity.  Which is a lot.

Make or Break:  The introduction to Batwoman is the Make.  It’s a nice, little montage showing off Monti being glamorous (and in direct address to the camera at some points), practicing her shooting skills (even though this never comes up again in the film, although it does give us Monti togged out like a cowgirl in a black leather vest), and even showing off her wrestling chops (I’m fairly confident that was a stunt double).  It’s pretty much everything you can expect from this movie in about a minute.

Score:  6.5/10