FIGHTING MAD 1976

"When You Push Too far, Even A Peaceful Man Gets Fighting Mad"

   The third of three movies Jonathan Demme (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) directed for Roger Corman, this followed CAGED HEAT (1974) and CRAZY MAMA (1975). Even though it was written by Demme (along with CAGED  HEAT), FIGHTING MAD had the most "work for hire" feel to it of all his Corman productions. Demme, even in his later work tended to be at his best when he focused on quirky characters and small-town oddballs such as in MELVIN AND HOWARD and in the underrated & unknown CITIZENS BAND. He also always seemed to favor strong female characters which one can see in CAGED HEAT and even in the sometimes silly & wacky CRAZY MAMA.

    Part of Corman's deal with 20th Century Fox which meant that Roger had a bit more money than usual for his productions that made for a slicker and bigger looking film (sometimes for the better & sometimes not), FIGHTING MAD mixes in some 70's Whole Earth Catalog ecology along with the then-popular hicksplotation (although here lacking moonshine), revenge such as WALKING TALL and BILLY JACK along with independent salt-of-the-earth folks fighting greedy corporations. 

     Stoic Tom Hunter (Peter Fonda (THE WILD ANGELS) travels back to his small Arkansas hometown with his young son. Through his monologue to his son, we learn that he's divorced and leaving "the big city" as he hated living there and his wife wouldn't leave with him. Returning to the family farm he finds his father Jeff (John Doucette PATTON) and his brother Charlie (a young Scott Glenn billed here as Scott Glen) engaged in battle with a greedy land developer Pierce Crabtree (TV actor Phillip Carey) who heads up the appropriately named Crabtree Corp. Seemingly wanting to run roughshod over the entire area Crabtree is busy throwing up shopping malls and adding strip mines while forcing the local townsfolk off their land at a fraction of its value while enlisting the help of the corrupt local law enforcement and hired strong-arm goons.

   Wasting no time in kicking things into gear Tom is back in town barely one day before his brother and sister-in-law are killed in a fiery car crash after being piled with liquor and he begins a relationship with his old flame Lorene Maddox (Lynn Lowry I DRINK YOUR BLOOD). The spineless & corrupt sheriff (Harry Northup BOXCAR BERTHA) along with Crabtree dismiss the crash as a "drunken accident" and when the shifty realtors show up at the family farm with legal paperwork and a model of the proposed shopping mall they plan to build on the families farmland Tom smashes the model and clobbers the evil realtors with a hoe. 

    With a film like this, you know what's coming and the way the plot unfolds and the character's motivation and reaction to the unfolding events that make it either work or not. Fonda was always an interesting actor and watching him balance his initial laid-back persona with his later vengeance-seeking righteous-driven character is interesting although the constant brooding and simmering anger go on too long sometimes (along with shots of earthmoving equipment & strip mines). Watching him commandeer a bulldozer to break-up a neighbors house repossession or calmy kill off the land developers in their expansive home with a bow and arrow is loads of fun. Crabtree and his posse of crooks seem to live together in a swanky ultra-modern house with interiors that look to be from a Playboy photoshoot. The bow & arrow is a bit perplexing it does reinforce the back-to-nature wronged man protecting his land and the way of life. The sequences of families being evicted by the developers and the bulldozing of their homes bring to mind the depression era and the WPA photographs of the '30s. As to be expected the action sequences and Fonda "putting it to man" are the best parts of the film. 

    The film's pacing is kind of choppy and sometimes has trouble keeping consistent pacing. Just when the action starts ramping up Fonda goes into a bar and broods for a while or stops by for a roll in the hay with Lynn Lowry. The secondary characters including Douchette and the young Scott Glenn all bring a sense of grounded realism to their characters and Carey brings an atmosphere of the slimy big businessman (and ultimately thoroughly evil) that make you want to cheer on Fonda's character even more. One of my favorite actresses Lynn Lowry has a rather thankless role here but as usual, brings a wonderful presence to the small role. She also contributes a couple of topless scenes that along with some bloody shootings barely nudge the film into an "R" rating by 1970's standards.

   The film bears a close approximation to New World's later BLACK OAK CONSPIRACY from 1977 and that film's producer and writer Jesse Vint would claim that he brought the story idea to New World and they "appropriated" it for FIGHTING MAD. They did later allow Vint to make his film and there is a sameness to the plots although FIGHTING MAD is a better film.  

    As mentioned before because this was one of Corman's films made in conjunction with Fox there's more of a feeling of "bigness" to the film including helicopter shots, a larger cast, and the use of actual Arkansas locations that work much better than the usual So. Cal. locations for New World films.  

   The schizophrenic music score by longtime Fonda friend and collaborator Bruce Langhorne is all over the map with banjo themed moments for the family and farm scenes and a jarring electronic score for the action sequences. There's also the classic plaintive harmonica the pops up every time somebody dies that we care about. 

   Not a great movie but a film that does what it's supposed to do and thanks to Fonda's performance which brings quiet simmering anger to the character rather than the over-the-top bloody revenge that's the usual hallmark of these films. 

   Available on DVD from Shout Factory with Charles S. Duplin's interesting MOVING VIOLATION which has a rare leading man and nice guy role for Stephen Mchattie and the always welcome Kay Lenz.

THE HAUNTED PALACE 1963

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"…While, like a ghastly rapid river, Through the pale door, 
a hideous throng rush out forever and laugh – But smile no more"

    Although cinematically placed in Roger Corman's "Poe" cycle for A.I.P. (and marketed as such by A.I.P. who by this time were highly attuned to the cash cow the series had become) 1963's THE HAUNTED PALACE is based (however nominally) on the H.P. Lovecraft novella The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward with Price narrating the closing verses of the Poe poem that lends itself to the film's title.
    Written by Charles Beaumont (Rod Serling's THE TWILIGHT ZONE) the story while being saddled with Poe references, based upon a Lovecraft story and with a script by Beaumont does sometimes has the feel of a mix of different cooks, none of which are fully developed. In interviews, Roger Corman has bemoaned the fact that he was forced to link Poe to all these projects and that he was looking forward to doing a Lovecraft adaption. The film itself is a beautiful looking production with Floyd Crosby's cinematography (HOUSE OF USHER), art direction by Daniel Haller (THE DUNWICH HORROR) and set direction by Harry Reif (PANIC IN YERO ZERO) all lending themselves to a production that's Gothic eye candy all done in somber browns & blacks, with mist-shrouded matte paintings and gnarly trees.

    Coming 6th in the series (after the comedic THE RAVEN from earlier in 1963, THE HAUNTED PALACE was the last of the series to be filmed in America and coming in the latter half of the series it benefits from the studios slowly up ticking budget for each film and although still technically a "B" picture it has the sumptuous look that Corman and his crew brought to these films. Although all the Poe films always had some adult themes lurking just under the surface, THE HAUNTED PALACE brings these more to the forefront with rape and women being possessed in order to breed with otherworldly entities. The film is also the first theatrical picture to directly reference Lovecraft with such cosmic horrors as Elder Gods, Cthulhu, and Yog-Sothoth along with the town of Arkam all being mentioned. It contains the first utterance of the fabled Necronomicon (by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred) with the book being shown on-screen in its film debut.
     Like all the Poe films, THE HAUNTED PALACE opens with some atmospheric credits (designed by Armondo Linus Acosta THE YOUNG RACERS) as a spider spins a web across a black screen with the web moving over the credits. A group of angry townsfolk is gathered in a local tavern (although we're never given a specific year we're led to believe the films opening narration takes place in the mid-1700s before jumping ahead to the next century for the remainder of the film) and they're mounting angry with local warlock Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price) comes to a head when Edgar Weeden's (Leo V. Gordon TOBRUK) wife is wondering off in a trance to Dexter's castle where she is to be indoctrinated into some evil proceedings. Doing what townfolks do best in this type of situation they gather the pitchforks and torches and proceed to the castle where they take Ward and burn him at the stake. Like all good warlocks (and witches) he proceeds to invoke a curse upon the townfolks and their descendants as a thunderstorm rages overhead.

     Flash forward 110 years and Curwen's great-grandson Charles Dexter Ward (again Price) and his wife Ann (Debra Paget TALES OF TERROR in her last theatrical role) arrive in Arkam to claim their inheritance of the Curwen castle. Stopping in the Burning Man Tavern they come across the same surly group of townsfolk (in fact the exact same as they're played by the same actors portraying the original mob's relatives). Among them are a gaggle of familiar character faces including above mentioned Leo V. Gordon along with Elisha Cook Jr. (THE MALTESE FALCON), John Dierkes (THE ALAMO) and ubiquitous TV presence Frank Maxwell (MR. MAJESTYK). Finding them not too receptive to his looking to settle in the Dexter house, the couple proceeds to the newly inherited adobe with only Maxwell's doctor character showing them some friendship. There's also a sequence showing the physically deformed offspring of some of the Arkam residents that still packs a jolt.
    Once inside the castle, Charles Ward gazes upon the portrait of his ancestor Joseph Curwen and immediately begins channeling his evil great-grandfathers personality while hooking up with his two assistants one of them being Simon Orne (Lon Chaney Jr.), here making his only appearance in a Corman film along with this being his only pairing with Price. Charles Ward/Joesph Curwen begins moving forward with his old plans which include resurrecting his previous mistress (Barbara Morris THE WASP WOMEN and who appeared in over 15 A.I.P. films from 1956 to 1970), and (hopefully) getting Debra Paget to get acquainted with "the thing in the pit". At the same time, the same group of angry villagers (Leo V. Gordon spends his brief screen time in a perpetual rage) us fuming in the same pub before the now possessed Price begins knocking them off in gruesome fashion as revenge for his previous century stake burning.

     Price seems to be having a wonderful time playing the dual roles (especially toward the middle of the plot when he alternates between the two) and it's interesting to see him play somewhat of a   milquetoast character in the first scenes before he goes into the full arching eyebrows Vincent Price evil persona. Even though by this time this would the evil warlock would be a character Price could play in his sleep, he still brings a wonderful and entertaining level of professionalism to the role.  Chaney Jr.'s work had lately been regulated to guest spots on TV westerns and with the exception of Jack Hill's SPIDER BABY in 1967, this would be one of his last decent roles.
    Debra Paget had had roles in several major movies including DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS 1954, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 1956, and Elvis's LOVE ME TENDER in 1956, but made the biggest impression in Fritz Lang's THE INDIAN TOMB 1959 where has Seetha she did a dance that was forever ingrained on many a young boy's brains during its frequent showing on Sat. afternoon TV. She doesn't get to do a lot here, seeming to spend most of her time cowering in her bed or wondering about the castle in her dressing gown - which to Paget's and cinematographer Floyd Crosby's credit do look ravishingly beautiful.
     The movie's plot is indebted to Mario Bava's LA MASCHERA DEL DEMOINO (aka BLACK SUNDAY 1960) and that films motif of witches/warlocks being executed while invoking curses on future generations would be carried over in countless Euro-horror films of the coming decade along with John Llewellyn Moxey's CITY OF THE DEAD  (aka HORROR HOTEL 1960) which also seems to be an influence on THE HAUNTED PALACE (Roger Corman during this period was a  prodigious movie watcher).
     Lovecraft's fiction often dealt with demonic cosmic entities, ancient evil religions of vast scope and unexplainable monstrous visages all of which are pretty much impossible to project on the screen (especially in 1963 on an A.I.P. budget) and THE HAUNTED PALACE attempts to marry some of this to a rather basic A.I.P. "Poe" plot. The result being is that's a great deal of exposition by characters in the film attempting to explain this which sometimes bogs down things in the middle and the films much talked about & hyped "pit monster" or "old one" is bound to disappoint if fully shown. Its wavy out-of-focus views during the plot's climax are more in line with what Lovecraft often described as horrors unable to describe. This film is my favorite of the Poe cycle and it's gorgeous to look at (it's Gothic overdrive to the max) and while only being nominally attached to the Lovecraft source novella it does an admirable job of invoking the spirit of H.P. and remains one of my favorite Lovecraft adaptions and one of my favorite Vincent Price roles.