GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (2012)

Who would have thought that Ed Wood (*) was:

1. Alive and Well?

2.Working for Marvel Comics?

3. Making a 3-D movie with a mega-budget?

Only Ed himself could have produced such trailer trash cinema out of the pages of a comic book character; he seems to be doing just that in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012).

Forget the period nostalgia of Captain America (2011) or Robert Downey’s inimitable personality underneath the armor of Iron Man (2008); the future of superhero movies may well just degenerate into the guttural hodgepodge found in this un-stylish, witless follow up to 2007′s Ghost Rider.

It is little wonder that the indie movie scene, more often than not, offers nothing more than the most execrable rubbish that would make anyone either throw up or roll onto the floor laughing. Because it is Hollywood’s taste, class, and professional entertainment standards that offer them their role model.

The directing/writing team of  Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have a resume straight from the Jerry Springer school of film (or, more aptly, music videos with bad music). Crank (2006),Gamer (2009), and Jonah Hex (2010) should have been warning enough. But, it does to go to show that with the right background and connections, together with the right deal, the most talentless, juvenile hacks can shmooze and ink their way into the latest Hollywood fads.

The Ghost Rider character, for those who care, is a sort of the Exorcist meets Evel Knieval. He’s a bottom-of-the-barrel superhero from Marvel Comics. The superhero tag is somewhat questionable—from what I recall of the 70′s comic, he was merely a leather clad flaming skull who rode a chopper from hell and hung out with Spiderman and the X-Men. Apart from his appearance, he fit right in with the rest of the tight-wearing crowd and battled super-villains. That’s not exactly fodder for a unique character, but a matter-of-fact demon as superhero,teaming up with Spiderman and company, has far more peculiar potential than what is served up in this death metal magazine residue that comes complete with slip-shod camerawork, alarmingly bad writing (from three writers!), Nicolas Cage’s uncanny ability to make even a train wreck look boring, and an amateurish score that sounds like it belongs in cheap porn.

Hollywood, having long been bankrupt in the imagination department, has turned to comic books for ideas. Unfortunately, Tinseltown already seems to be scraping the leftover bins. Taking nothing away from the comic books, I am certain there had to be some halfway decent (or at least better) issues of Ghost Rider comics for the filmmakers to adapt.

Alas, this compares to the Green Lantern (2011) fiasco. That film was clearly made by committee and deservedly sank. By consensus, there are far better Green Lantern stories that could have easily been utilized. (The main one I remember was an “On the Road”saga with Green Arrow). Green Lantern himself was a bit self-righteous and bland, kind of like John Boy Walton or Luke Skywalker. He desperately needed a more colorful, rougher Errol Flynn/Han Solo type, which he got in Green Arrow. Later, Green Lantern went solo and the stories went from being earth-bound to overtly complicated sci-fi mumbo jumbo. The Martin Campbell helmed adaptation unwisely followed that later route.

John Semper, the producer of the 1990s animated Spiderman, once said: “It does not matter who Spiderman is fighting. What matters is that Peter Parker cannot pay the rent and has girlfriend problems.” That’s called narrative character development, along with an identification point, which is always needed, and most especially in a comic book character.  Pretty simple, except that the basic 101 concept seems to elude studio executives.

Since the comic books already exist, it would seem blatantly obvious that filmmakers could and should tap the classic stories of their sources. Hell, they would already have the film pre-storyboarded and, I would imagine, save considerable money to boot.

Instead, we get Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance! Where you can see Nicolas Cage piss fire in 3D! Ghost Rider begins with endless, and pointless, exposition. From there, incredulously, it gets worse, and by the time the credits roll, both the film and Cage have taken on the persona of a drooling idiot, badly in need of a bib.

To quote Bogart: ” So many lousy movies! It’s like GM deliberately putting out a bad car.”

*With sincere apologies to the late Ed. You were never this dull and, at least, everything you did was stamped with your quirky personality and offered some fun by way of camp value.

THE VULNERABLE AND VIVACIOUS POET OF JAZZ: A RARE FILMED CONCERT OF THE LATE ABBEY LINCOLN.

This performance of the late jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln was filmed at New York’s Promenade Theater in 1991. The film here is an hour long in the round concert and rare glimpse of the enigmatic, introspective artist. The singer’s television special “You Gotta Pay the Band” has never been released on DVD and Carol Friedman’s in-progress Lincoln documentary “The Music Is The Magic” has been struggling to see the light of day due to financing difficulties, which makes this Kultur Video/Lucy II production all the more valuable. To date, it is the only release of a Lincoln performance in visual medium. Fortunately, the documentation intensely captures the singer’s level of expressiveness.

If Jazz singers are assessed foremost by depth of purpose, depth of spirit, then Lincoln shoots straight to the top or very close. Time -wise, she is midway in the history of this relatively small group of singers, which began with Billie Holiday followed by Lena Horn, Lincoln, Nina Simone, and is carried on by Cassandra Wilson ( THE current bearer of that tradition).

Lincoln strongly resisted efforts of record labels to promote her as a sex symbol, wrote most of her own songs, and unflinchingly voiced social concerns in her music. She gained notoriety for her participation in “The Freedom Suite” composed by jazz drummer Max Roach, who became her only husband (their marriage lasted eight years, before divorcing in 1970).

Her great influence was Billie Holiday. Some music critics maintain that, artistically, Lincoln, even more poignant, surpassed her role model. Of course, that is debatable (although I wouldn’t debate it, even as much as I edify Holiday). Lincoln was selective in what she sang, preferring to invest only in music that held meaning for her. This directly led to her taking on the role of composer. Following her divorce from Roach, Lincoln was absent from the music scene for nearly twenty years, sporadically appearing in films and television. Among her notable film works were her roles as the alternate Hollywood beauty in “The Girl Can’t Help It-1956″, the intimately sublime “Nothing But A Man-1964″, and the perfection of aged wine in Spike Lee’s “Mo’ Better Blues-1990.”

In 1990, with the release of her cd, “The World Is Falling Down” on the Verve label, Lincoln embarked on the twilight of her musical oeuvre, which lasted until her death, at the age of 80, in 2010. By general consensus, her late work ranks with and often surpasses her earlier efforts, with her swansong “Abbey Sings Abbey” (2007) considered as vital as the revelatory “Straight Ahead” (1961).

Of the songs performed here, Lincoln wrote, or co-wrote five of the eight. They are as follows:

. Summer Wishes (written by Marilyn and Alan Bergman)

. Up Jumped Spring. (Abbey Lincoln & Freddie Nobbard))

. A Time For Love. (Paul Francis Webster & Johnny Mandel)

. Bird Alone. (A.L.)

. You Gotta Pay The Band. (A.L.)

. Brother Can You Spare A Dime? (Paul Francis Webster & Jay Gorney)

. When I’m Called Home. (A.L)

. I’m In Love. (A.L.)

The camera work in this performance is economical, intimate without being intrusive. As for the concert and Lincoln herself, she is, simultaneously, a class act, intelligent, powerfully evocative, self-assured, buoyant, yet projecting vulnerable ethos. A pronounced highlight here is her idiosyncratic rendition of a song made popular by Bing Crosby, “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” Of course, this was, possibly, the quintessential anthem for the depression-era man. Lincoln taps the common denominator that she finds at the heart of the song and she does so with an empathetic level of perception. By filtering this standard through her own sensibilities, she makes it her own declaration.

Towards the end of her life, Lincoln, looking unflinchingly at her own mortality, wrote: “When everything is finished in the world, the people go to look for what the artists leave. It’s the only thing we have really in this world-is an ability to express ourselves and say I was here.”

Without phoniness, Lincoln lived her life, saying: “I was here” in her various artistic mediums (she was also a painter). This documentation is among the records she left behind, records which serve in making her one of our treasured companions.

SHIFTING SANCTUARIES

The 1956 Marc Chagall etching “Samuel Anointing Saul” depicts the last of the judges, the middle-aged Samuel, anointing the young Saul as Israel’s first king. This action, in the literary development of First Samuel, expresses a symbolic, narrative shifting of
sanctuaries for Israel. Yahweh’s people, rejecting the sons of Samuel, and thus rejecting the hereditary line of judges, ask for their first King. The Israelites desire what other nations have. They desire the sanctuary of strong, human leadership in a king. It is with this pivotal point in the drama of First Samuel that Israel’s mode of sanctuary shifts from the security of the prophetic leadership to the security of an earth-bound leadership.

Chagall’s etching is interesting in it’s expressive depiction. There is, of course, debate as to the actual age of Saul, ranging from a man in his early twenties to a middle-aged man of
forty. Naturally, such a debate potentially treats the character as an historical one. The degree of historicity is, wisely, not at all a concern to Chagall. The artist’s youthful depiction of the literary character, serves the work well. In representing the Saul figure as a youth, Chagall captures the inherent humility of the character in the scriptural text. “Is not my family the least of all the families from the tribe of Benjamin?”[1]Later,
after being anointed king, Saul returns home, as if nothing has happened, and
even neglects to tell his family of his kingship. The look on Saul’s face in the etching, as Samuel anoints him, captures the introverted essence of the character. Further emphasizing that inner quality, is the gesture of Saul’s hand, across his bosom. Samuel’s fatherly hand cups Saul’s hand, depicting an intimate admiration, on Samuel’s part, for the young Saul. Saul looks heavenward, feeling unworthy of this coronation.

Additionally, there is a milieu of pathos in Chagall’s work. This is pronounced in the expressive eyes of both Samuel and Saul. Samuel’s eyes are like a doe’s eyes. They are black, soft, and penetrating, seemingly foreshadowing the tension of his future relationship with the king. Saul’s humility is coupled with his feelings of insecurity.
Chagall seems to sympathize with both men in this visual interpretation and the
artist masterfully captures a fully emotional range, which is only hinted at in
the text. Knowledge of the unfolding narrative, after the anointing of Saul,
undoubtedly influenced Chagall’s interpretive choices.

The story of Saul’s anointing is one of the most uniquely edited in the whole of scripture. The narrator’s juxtaposition of Saul’s search for lost mules with Samuel’s searching for
Israel’s first king is strikingly compelling. Walter Brueggemann writes, “The pericope is destined to bring out Samuel’s capacity as seer and Saul’s slowness to comprehend the movement of history as it swirls around him. The two themes of kingship and asses play off each other masterfully.” [2] Chagall’s newly anointed Saul is drawn as a youth we can readily imagine as a man who feels perplexed as the movement of history swirls around him. Barbara Green poses an interesting question that adds to Chagall’s etching of Saul and to Saul’s portrait from the biblical text, “ What sense can we make of Saul’s
prominent hesitation to be king, his apparent squeamishness about handling both
approbation and opposition?” [3]

Later in the text, when instructing Samuel to chooses Saul’s successor, Yahweh tells Samuel, “ God does not see as human beings see; they look at appearances but Yahweh looks at the heart.”[4] Yet, oddly, Yahweh seems to look primarily at appearances in both the choosing of David and in the previous choosing of Saul because we are told that both are beautiful or handsome men. Chagall’s Saul personifies the notion of physical
beauty.

Chagall’s etching captures the sublime, physical beauty of the narrative moment it depicts. Simultaneously, this work also expresses the deep, rudimentary emotions at play under the surface of the text. Chagall’s later works on the subject of Saul convey the tragic arch of the reign that followed Saul’s coronation. Saul’s sanctuary of an anonymous life at
home shifts to the total absence of sanctuary as the first king of Yahweh’s people.

---

[1] The New
Jerusalem Bible: First Samuel.  New
York: Doubleday, 1990.

[2] Brueggemann,
Walter. First and Second Samuel. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990.p.73

[3] Green, Barbara. King Saul’s Asking. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1989.p.43

[4] The New
Jerusalem Bible: First Samuel.  New
York: Doubleday, 1990.

MOSES AND THE GOLEM

Anti-Semitic expressions in the arts can nearly be traced back to the dawn of Christianity.  Shakespeare’s Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice, manifested Elizabethan attitudes of a stereotypical Jew demanding a “pound of flesh” for unpaid debts.  Critics have long debated the extent  of anti-Semitism in the play, but even the most resistant critics have admitted that, at the least, the character has the outline of anti-Semitic stereotypes.[1] The Nazis certainly thought so and utilized the play for their own means in an extreme, notorious production staged at Vienna’s Burgtheater in 1943. That play starred German actor Werner Krauss in the role of Shylock. Krauss had also starred in the unsettling Nazi propaganda film, “Jew Suess” which was a box office hit in Germany and inspired mob violence against many Jews upon its release.

“Jew Suess” (1940) was one of many anti-Semitic films produced in Germany during the Nazi regime, but in the medium of film the latent seeds of depicted racist attitudes began in the silent film era, especially in films immediately following the end of the first world war.  Germany was hardly alone in expressions of anti-Semitism in film. The French surrealist Georges Melies made several short films at the turn of the century which had blatant anti-Semitic tones. The most notorious of these was “The Wandering Jew” (1904). The expressionistic cardboard shore of the Dead Sea is vividly juxtaposed against the stereotypical, cursed Jew, forced to wander throughout eternity for having refused water to the suffering Christ. The ghostly image of Christ, followed by nuns as he carries his cross on the way to Calvary, fills the painted sky, tormenting the forever wandering Jew. Satan appears in  a vivid forest and beats the Jew with his own staff when the wanderer stops for a rest. An angel appears and points the way onward, ever onward. The last expressionist set of a hillside is filled with lightning as the Wanderer presses forward in his never ending, cursed journey.

The Spanish surrealist Luis Bunuel once said, “film is a beautiful weapon.”  [2] German cinema certainly took Bunuel at his literal word. Bunuel hardly meant, nor could have imagined, film as a medium for anti-Semitic weaponry. Even though Germany had notable Jewish filmmakers, such as Fritz Lang, Arian German filmmakers utilized the new medium to fan the flames of cultural paranoia regarding the Jews, especially in numerous expressionist horror films, such as F.W. Murnau’s  famous “Nosferatu” (1922) which depicted a hooked-nosed, loathsome vampire out to drain Europe of blood and finance. While the vampire was not labeled Jewish, his countenance was clearly a Jewish caricature who emptied Arian Germans of their blood and brought the plague into civilized Europe (The myth still persisted that grave-robbing Jews had spread the black plague). That film followed on heels of Paul Wegener’s “The Golem” (1920).

Paul Wegener made three film versions of “The Golem.” The first two are now lost and it is the third version which is known to historians today. “The Golem” has been simultaneously labeled as film of Semitic sympathies and as an anti-Semitic film. Wegner later made anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi films for Hitler and this is an undeniable factor in assessing “The Golem” as an example of ant-Semitism in German film.

In her essay of “The Golem” Cathy Gelbin writes, “The term Golem first appears in the Hebrew Scriptures. In Psalm 139:16 it connotes a shapeless mass, perhaps an embryo, while a derivative of the root in Isaiah 49:21 refers to female infertility. Medieval Jewish mystics adopted the term to describe an artificial man created via Cabbalistic ritual. A Polish-Jewish folk-tale tradition centered around the creation of a Golem arose around 1600 and made its way into German literary Romanticism two hundred years later. Writing in the age of Jewish emancipation, Christian authors such as Achim von Arnim, ETA Hoffmann and others used the Golem to reflect the common perception of Jews as uncanny and corrupt.”[3]

In “The Golem”, the Christian Emperor, waxing resentment towards the Jews, decides to expel them. He posts a large sign ordering them to leave for “Killing Our Lord and Savior.” In panic, the ghetto Jews go to Rabbi Lowe for help. Rabbi Lowe , black magician that he is, conjures up a Golem, through sorcery, to protect his Jews from the Christians. Of course, the Golem goes berserk, even killing the Rabbi’s Jews until an Arian girl removes the star of David from the Golem’s chest, killing him.

Siegfried Kracauer writes, “The resentful Golem reflects Germans’ grudge against their international ostracism after World War I, and anticipating the rise of the Nazi dictatorship.  [4] While “The Golem” does refrain from depicting Jews as money grubbing zealots, it succumbs to negative Christian associations of Jews with sorcery. The film also clearly draws a negative portrayal of Jewish women, “Anti-Jewish stereotypes mark the portrayal of Miriam as the dark and seductive Jewish woman, while Christian women at the court shy away from the Golem’s advances. Even more strongly, the blonde girls at the end of the film signify. The polarity between the images of Jewish and Christian women is blatant. Outside the ghetto walls, the Golem sees a mother and child bringing flowers to a statue of the Virgin Mary and her baby Jesus. The Jewish woman thus exemplifies the destructive allure of the female sex unless restrained by Christian chastity, domesticity and maternity. The soulless Golem equally contrasts with the naturalized image of mother and child who are bathed in light and aligned with the Christian world. This construction evokes the claim by Tertullian that “the soul is by nature Christian,” an assertion still cited in the Twentieth Century.”[5]

In 1940, Germany produced the film, “The Eternal Jew.” If the anti-Semitism in “The Golem” could be debated as being ambiguous, no such questioning could be attached to “The Eternal Jew.” This film, along with the afore mentioned “Jew Suess”, from the same year, was blatant hate propaganda. A typical, telling review was from the Nazi Party’s monthly propaganda paper,  Unser Wille und Weg, “ The Eternal Jew not only gives a full picture of Jewry, but provides a broad treatment of the life and effects of this parasitic race using genuine material taken from real life. It shows why healthy peoples in every age have responded to the Jews with disgust and loathing. Just like rats, the Jews moved from the Middle East to Egypt. In large hordes they migrated from there to the Promised Land, flooded the Mediterranean region, broke into Spain, France, and Germany. Along the way they remained eternal parasites, haggling and cheating. Poland above all became the enormous reservoir from which Jewry sent its agents to every leading nation of the world. All that is overshadowed by the powerful examples in this new, most valuable film, The Eternal Jew. This film with its persuasive power must be shown everywhere. No one will fail to shudder at the sneaking servility and dirty bartering of the Jews when they reach their goal and control finance. The most revolting scenes show Jewish slaughtering methods. These customs are so terrible that it is hard to watch the film as the grinning Jewish butchers carry out their work. It is illuminating to see how stubbornly Jewry holds to its method of slaughter and with which casuistry it defends it against the horror of the civilized world. Rarely will people feel more horror than which watching the desperate and horrible death struggle of the slaughtered animals. Long before the seizure of power, the NSDAP fought against Jewish slaughter. National Socialist representatives in parliament repeatedly introduced legislation to abolish this form of animal torture through a ban on Jewish slaughter. Such proposals were always rejected, since the entire Jewish and Jewish-influenced press ran long articles against them and the so-called German parties refused to support National Socialism in its battle against this evil.”[6]

Calling out and addressing Anti-Semitism was not tolerated, even here in the states. Charlie Chaplin, possibly the most beloved figure in cinema history, finally made his Tramp speak and it was in “The Great Dictator.” (1938). Chaplin later said that if he had known the extent of loss in Hitler’s Germany, he could not have made the film, but Chaplin, who had a Jewish half-brother, felt driven to confront the rise of Fascism. He paid for his ruthless parody of Hitler, who we had not yet gone to war with. “The Great Dictator” was booed, cherry bombed, and ridiculed. J. Edgar began a crusade to kick Chaplin out of the country, which he succeeded in doing, and labeled Chaplin a communist sympathizer. Like the Nazis, American wanted romantic escapism in their art and entertainment. They did not want to be confronted with the horrors of the world. Chaplin eventually wound up in Switzerland. He made a few more films in Europe, but the Tramp was dead, killed by “The Great Dictator.”

Aggressive hostility towards Jews, through the arts, was not at all limited to the medium of film. The most notorious example of this was the infamous “Entartete Kunst”, the “Degenerate Art” show in 1937. The Nazis had purged German museums for an extensive list of art labeled “degenerate.” Most of the art was by Jewish artists, such as Marc Chagall, Franz Marc, August Macke, Max Beckmann, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Otto Dix, Ernst Kirchner, (who committed suicide shortly after the showing), Oscar Kokoschka, Emil Nolde, Jean Miro, Egon Friedell (who threw himself out of a window)and Kurt Schwitters, among others. Hitler singled out the Jews for their “modern, vulgar, and foreign influences on the arts.” [7]German art was supposed to be rooted in romantic classicism. Pathos of the human condition, in art, was immediately labeled “degenerate.” 650 works were put on display. The exhibit opened in Munich and traveled to eleven other cities in Germany and Austria. In each installation, the works were poorly hung and surrounded by graffiti mocking the artists and their work. In much of the graffiti, Jewish were intensely mocked. One such sign read, “Cretin and whore- An insult to German women.”[8]   Over three million visitors attended the exhibit. Many ridiculed the art and spat on it. After the show some of the works were sold, mostly to Switzerland (Switzerland refused Paul Klee citizenship, after he fled there, on the grounds that he was a degenerate artist). However, much of the work, over five thousand canvases, were burned in the Berlin bonfire in 1938.

Of course, music from Jewish composers was also banned. Franz Waxman and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (both fled to Hollywood and became celebrated film score composers), were among the list of composers whose work was labeled “entartete musik.” Pavel Haas and Hans Krasa were two Jewish composers who were murdered, on the same day, at Auschwitz, in October 1944. Despite the horrific conditions, Haas and Krasa managed to secretly continue composing during their internment. Remarkably, Haas wrote a life-affirming pastorale string quartet titled, “From the Monkey Mountain” during his imprisonment. When this music was finally released on compact disc in 1990, Jim Svjeda, of the Record Shelf guide wrote, “This music of Haas and Krasa is among the most sublime and jubilant music produced during the Holocaust. It is among the most heart-breaking of the Entartete Musik yet released.” [9]

Arnold Schonberg, the leader of the Second Viennese School, was among the most famous of the Jewish artists who fled Germany. Schonberg had earlier converted to the Lutheran faith, through the influence of his Christian wife,  but re-embraced his Jewish heritage with the rise of Nazism. In reflecting back on his former Christianity, Schoenberg showed no hostility towards that faith or the symbolism of its founder, “Jesus, as a redeemer, must have been the most selfless and idealistic being who ever walked the face of the earth.”[10]

Despite his conversion at the time, Schoenberg was not immune to anti-Semitism. He lamented that his friend, the painter Wassily Kandinsky, who was the leader of the Blue Riders, which had included the Jewish Franz Marc and Auguste Macke, was not immune to the anti-Semitic fervor of Europe. In a letter, Schoenberg wrote, “Even Kandinsky sees only what is evil in the activities of the Jews and in their evil activities only what is Jewish.”[11]

In a letter to Kandinsky, Schoenberg proclaimed “I am no longer European, I am no longer German, perhaps scarcely even a human being.  I am but a Jew without a home and without a voice.”[12] Schoenberg had written an earlier play, “The Bible Way” in 1926, which was a response to European anti-Semitism. In 1932, Schoenberg began composing a three act, twelve tone opera, “Moses und Aron.” Only two acts of the opera were completed and the work ends after the second act. Schoenberg had applied for a grant to finish the opera, but was turned down by the Guggenheim Fellowship (which regularly dolls out grants to hacks), and was never able to finish the work. Still, even in its abbreviated form, it is a powerful, metaphoric opera which has become close to a standard in the operatic repertoire.

In the opera, Moses has a terrible speech impediment and is forced to rely on his brother Aron, to be his mouthpiece. In this Schonberg stuck to the biblical narrative. Where Schoenberg departs from the text (which, in immense struggle, he found to be riddled with ‘unworkable’ inconsistencies) is in the developing relationship and eventual outcome in the relationship between the two brothers. Moses is frustrated because Aron cannot fully convey Moses’ expressions. Theirs is a theological dispute and it is one in which Schoenberg, as Moses, is self-critical because it is Aron who give the better argument. Moses is vehemently opposed to the divine expressed in imagery, yet Aron argues that the tablets, presented by Moses, are an image and the pillar of smoke, meant to keep the Egyptians at bay, was an image. After the frenzied orgy of the golden calf, Moses is forced to imprison and execute Aron. In essence, Moses kills his own voice.  This is densely symbolic for Schoenberg’s own silencing, as a Jewish composer. In addition to the Nazi persecution, Schoenberg was embittered over the lack of support from Christian friends and colleagues, and the rejection form a Jewish institute to fund his opera. In frustration, Schoenberg, dejected, abandoned the opera, never finishing the third act. It was not until many years later that “Moses und Aron’ was performed in European Opera Houses. Even after the war, the opera proved provocative. Miriam Scherchen, daughter of the conductor Hermann Scherchen, related how, in the mid 1950s, Italian fascists disrupted her father’s performance of “Moses und Aron” which resulted in smoke bombing the opera, her father being badly beaten and his car vandalized.

Perhaps most devastating, haunting, and poignant of all is the Holocaust art, produced by Jews of the concentration camps. Much of that art was produced by Jewish children, “Realistically depicted guards, funerals, the departing transports, and the shooting of the German soldiers were reflected in the art of the boys. Little girls often focused on images of their past childhood years in freedom, filled with the joy of the sun, with children playing, families gathering at meal time, gardens and meadows filled with flowers and butterflies. Boys and girls made sketches of friends and often finished with heart-breaking poems. These sketches give us a glimpse of children’s tragic years, often filled with the hope of staying alive.” [13 Janusz Korczak was an author of childrens books. Having once been an orphan himself, Korczak ran an orphanage for Jewish children. When Korczak and his children were captured, a guard recognized Korczak as the author of one of his children's books and offered to help him escape. Korczak refused, insistent that he remain with his children. Korczak wrote, " A child is a hundred masks, but he is not a wage earner, and being so dependent, he is forced to give away to our will."[14] In August 1942, Korczak was marched, with his children into the box car. None were ever seen again. Israel Bernbaum, a fellow prisoner (and survivor), painted the scene, titled “My Brother’s Keeper” and related,  “Dr. Korczak walked with a child in each hand; the eyes of the children looked for his support and courage. On the long road from the train station, Dr. Korczak told the children that they were going to a school outing. Two days before he and his children were murdered at Treblinka, Dr. Korczak wrote that he did not exist to be loved, but to love and to act.” [15]

Thousands of drawings from Jewish adults have surfaced from the camp of Buchenwald, Treblinka, Auschwitz, and the other death camps. Names of these artists (that are known) should be honored;  Carl Hofer, Otto Pankok, Felix Nussbaum, Karl Schwesig, Boris Taslitzky, Charlotte Salomon, Otto Freundlich(whose art graced the cover of the catalogue for the Entartete Kunst show), Leo Haas, Bedrich Frida,  Otto Unger, Karl Fleischmann, Charlotte Buresova,  Jan Burka, Israel Lajzerowicz, Ether Lurie, and many more, of course. Exploration of this art is beyond the scope and limit of this paper, but it deserves to be seen, written about and seared into our memories.

Bibliography

John Baxter. Bunuel. New York: Carrol and Graffer, 1994

Nelly Toll. When Memory Speaks: The Holocaust in Art. Westport: Praeger, 1998

Bluma Goldstein. Reinscribing Moses. Boston: Harvard, 1992

Jim Svejda. Record Shelf Guide. Los Angeles: Prima, 1990.

Siegfried Kracauer. From Caligari to Hitler. New Jersey: Princeton University, 1947.

Stephanie Barron. Degenerate Art. Los Angeles: Harry Abrahms, 2004

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[1] Janet Aldeman’s Blood Relations: Christian and Jew in the Merchant of Venice is a brave work of complex research. It is highly recommended.

[2] John Baxter. Bunuel. New York: Carrol and Graffer, 1994. 142

[3] Cathy Gelbin. Narratives of Transgression, From Jewish Folk Tales to German Cinema. KinoEye, Vol3, 13 Oct, 2003.online.

[4] Siegfried Kracauer. From Caligari to Hitler. New Jersey: Princeton University, 1947. 49

[5] Cathy Gelbin. Narratives of Transgression, From Jewish Folk Tales to German Cinema. KinoEye, Vol3, 13 Oct, 2003.

[6] German Propaganda Archive, Calvin Institute.

[7] Nelly Toll. When Memory Speaks: The Holocaust in Art. Westport: Praeger, 1998.30

[8] Stephanie Barron. Degenerate Art. Los Angeles: Harry Abrahms, 2004.182

[9] Jim Svejda. Record Shelf Guide. Los Angeles: Prima, 1990. 244

[10] Bluma Goldstein. Reinscribing Moses. Boston: Harvard, 1992, 138.

[11] ibid. 140

[12] ibid.

[13] Nelly Toll. When Memory Speaks: The Holocaust in Art. Westport: Praeger, 1998.41

[14] ibid. 43

[15] ibid. 43

THE NEW NIGHTMARE THEATER WITH SAMMY TERRY: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I have gotten several
requests to do a write up on the new “Nightmare Theater” with Sammy Terry.
Despite the requests, I have been reticent for several reasons. The new
Nightmare Theater is in the grass roots stage, although whether or not it
should be is debatable. After all, Sammy Terry has a fifty year legacy, so it
should not be a case of having to compete with the Johnny-come-lately horror
hosts, of whom there are far too many of dreadful quality. With his long
history, Sammy Terry could be venturing into new territory, rather than
reconquering the market of local television, especially since local television
really no longer exists.

The first and most glaring problem with contemporary horror hosts is the question of whether they’re needed. In the golden age of horror hosts there were a half dozen or so local television stations, and the video/cable/Internet age was something akin to
science fiction. If one wanted to watch Frankenstein (1931), then you
might get the chance to see it once a year via the local host, who, in our case
in Indianapolis, was Sammy Terry on WTTV 4. Today, the horror host is simply
not a necessity, so in order to entice an audience the host should have
interesting personality, story, and characterization. Today’s hosts simply get
up and do their shtick. Often, one questions whether or not they have even
watched the hosted film. If the host wants the audience to acknowledge his or
her entertainment value, then his enthusiasm needs to be contagious. It rarely
is. The host hardly has to have a back story and, indeed, some sense of mystery
should be retained. Today’s audience is much more sophisticated; the
personality of the host, and his or her ability to make us care, is vital.
Instead, contemporary horror hosts can often be seen hawking their wares at
various horror conventions, seeming more like used car salesmen than mysterious
entities.

Mark Carter is the son of Bob Carter, the original Sammy Terry. Bob has retired and has passed the cape onto Mark, who is a dead ringer for his dad. Mark has an answer for the inevitable question “are you the Son of Sammy Terry?”—a classic “only Sammy’s blood has
worn this cape.” Unfortunately, Mark’s ready-made response has yet to be put to
use in an actual public interview. Instead, when local news programs
interviewed the new Sammy Terry, he broke character when the question arose,
which was a misstep.

I fondly reviewed the original Nightmare Theater 2 years ago (at 366 weird
movies), but the primary reason I have been reluctant to do this follow-up is
because I have numerous associates working on the new
Nightmare Theater. I sat in on a few round table discussions with the team. I
made and documented a few suggestions, then went back to other endeavors. In
the time since, a few associates have broken away from the Nightmare project.
There have been conflicts and competitive egos. Several other associates
continue to remain with the team. Luckily, I have been at a distance from it,
so I feel objectively free, at this point, to go ahead with my observations—and
those are unfortunately mixed, because I feel there is considerably rich
potential for Sammy Terry and the New Nightmare Theater, but there are also
legitimate disappointments.

Sammy Terry’s new set has been built in his home. The craftsmanship is superb and equals the set from thirty years ago. As for the act itself, one would have to scrutinize “Sammy’s blood”in order to distinguish that this is the son donning the cape. Mark Carter has
certainly mastered Sammy’s cadences and characterization.

Sammy Terry is now hosting independent horror shorts. These can be seen bi-weekly on the WTTV4 website. The first of the Sammy hosted shorts premiered on Sammy’s new DVD label. In the1980s, Sammy Terry publicly complained that the quality of movies being givento him by WTTV 4 had lowered considerably, especially in comparison to the
films he had been hosting the previous decades. While Sammy took a “the show
must go on” approach, his out-of-cape job—owning a classical music store—might
help explain his concern for what he was hosting. Yes, Sammy Terry was camp,
but he was classy camp. He would retain a sense of humor when hosting something
like Universal’s silly assembly-line monster mash, Frankenstein Meets The
Wolfman (1943) or Ed Wood’s infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959),
but Sammy could also convey a sense of dread when he hosted Rouben Mamoulin’s
macabre Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932) or tap into our fear
of Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). The films shown
undeniably effected Sammy’s act. Sadly, those otherworldly films eventually
gave way to Z-grade groaners, like Dracula’s Dog (1978). Sammy
responded by discussing the films less, and making his act more locally
focused. Eventually, he added colorful guests to exchange grand guignol puns,
and (one suspects) to help him get through the night. Luckily, after
retirement, Sammy returned to form of sorts when he hosted occasional specials.
While his energy could not match that of his heyday, his enthusiasm sparkled again,
much more so than in the whole of his last few years on weekly television.

If the quality of those 1980s movies were awful, then the movie on the new premiere Sammy Terry DVD, Bikini Monsters, is so execrable that it makes those 1980s turkeys look like polished diamonds. Bikini Monsters is a mutilated short taken from the
feature of the same name. It is directed by Terence Muncy. The movie is an
excuse for the director to be around scantily clad women, and to call himself a
director. Instead of a well crafted first impression of the new Sammy, we get
an unimaginative, dull, and witless waste. If the original Bikini Monsters was
bad enough, then the truncated version, produced for the DVD, makes this movie
an even more incomprehensible mess. The plot, such as it is, involves a hippie
turning buxom babes into “Bikini Monsters” and an investigator who thinks a
serial killer may be murdering the local girls! Or something like that.

Ed Wood idolized Orson Welles, yet Wood did not have an iota of Welles’ gifts. Terence Muncy seems to emulate Ed Wood and, remarkably, Muncy makes Wood look like a consummate master craftsman. Watching Muncy’s film reminded me of a bit of dialogue from Gods and Monsters (1998) when Clayton Boone asks James Whale, “Oh, you directed Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein,
etc?” Whale incisively responds, “Uh, no, just the first two. The others were
done by hacks.”

Muncy’s entire oeuvre is a lesson in banality. His first film,The Shack (2006) was a ten
cent slasher in the woods, complete with stranded babes at a gas station. His Hell
Walks the Earth (2008) went out of its way to prove the adage that zombies
are horror’s standard fall back when the ideas aren’t coming. While you pretty
much know what to expect from a title like Bikini Monsters, it still
does not go the route of overt plagiarism like Terence Muncy’s second short for
Sammy Terry, Bed Bug,which has to be the climax of Muncy’s brand of
counterfeit creativity. Bed Bug is an embarrassing and unforgivable
rip-off of Drew Daywalt’s vastly superior and more compact Bedfellows
(2008), which won several genre awards and was shown on Chiller TV.

When the plagiarism was brought
to my attention, I checked it out and, yes, it is shamelessly obvious as can be
seen when comparing the two films. I contacted an associate of Muncy’s who gave
me the answer of, “No, you only have to change one key point and then it is
yours.” Later, after talk of the plagiarism began making local rounds, someone
claimed that seven points had to be changed. Shortly after that, the new and
improved reply from Muncy’s camp was that, indeed, seven points were changed. I
was assured that the changes were enough for them to avoid charges of
plagiarism and claim the film as their own. Surprisingly, the answer that I got
back from my inquiry was not even a pooh-pooh dismissal response that the
similarities were unintentional. Perhaps the similarities are too obvious to
pretend otherwise, or perhaps this is a case of a hustler having no scruples.

The justification from the Bed  Bug side evades the unsettling issue of unethical business practices  trumping any regard for delivering honest, worthwhile entertainment. The point
that soars above the Bed Bug team’s head is that it seems Muncy could
not come up with an original idea for a mere 9 minute short without stealing
from superior talent. Alas, this all-too-common mentality justifiably gives
independent filmmaking a bad name; but, from viewing Muncy’s films, it is clear
that he desperately needs to steal from better writers. The subtle nuances of
Daywalt’s film are replaced in Bed Bug with Muncy’s pedestrian
obviousness.

Hosting inept schlock is  something a horror host may have to endure occasionally, and it’s not an issue providing one endures it through a sense of humor. Of course, it is also
preferable to find films that charmingly fit the ”so bad it’s good” category as
opposed to the “so bad it’s bad” category. Because Muncy is a large part of
Sammy’s team, his seemingly nonchalant, huckster-like attitude about peddling
shameless knockoffs for Sammy Terry to host seriously threatens to cheapen the
reputation of a worthwhile endeavor: not because of complex legal issues
regarding copyright, but because of unethical disregard and outright contempt
for originality. All too soon in the new endeavor, the uniqueness of the
original show is being sabotaged by inferior product and shyster-like business
practices,which could turn the New Nightmare into a Vegas-style caricature.
Carter has a fairly large team working for him, and he may not be fully in the
know. Regardless, the first impression he sowed has reaped enough negative
feedback that several independent filmmakers have expressed trepidation in
regards to submitting their work to the New Nightmare Theater team.
Additionally, there have been allegations that critical feedback on Sammy’s
various sites mysteriously disappears every few days. It is doubtful that
macro-management censorship can eradicate negative word of mouth.

Regardless, Sammy’s longtime fans have expressed enthusiasm for the continuation of the act and hope to see Nightmare Theater going in fresh, new directions while retaining the
traditional class of the original. The development of the character itself, in
quality films, would seem to be an obvious way for this 21st century
incarnation of the ghoul to put his personal stamp onto the original role model
and make it his own. Good independent and public domain films are, admittedly,
not an easy find (although it’s hardly impossible, because they are out there).
But, is this the case of a pale apple not falling far enough from the tree?
Nostalgia for the original Nightmare may prove to be short-lived. Nostalgia
alone will not cut it for long in the contemporary market, which inevitably
recognizes amateurish, slipshod imitations.

All this adds up to an overall disappointing first impression, despite Carter’s actual hosting duties, which he continues to polish. Carter’s tunnel vision-like focus and hard work on the
act itself seems to have blurred his priorities in scrutinizing the type of
films to which he is attaching the Sammy Terry name. Is the quality of what
Sammy Terry hosts of any importance? The films impact the act, so the answer is
“yes,” but if the attitude from Terence Muncy and some of the New Nightmare
Theater Team continues to be a resounding “no,” then the horizon may look like
a brief, bleak, unpleasant nightmare.

However, there are optimistic signs that the New Nightmare Theater might rebound. The most recent, post-Terence Muncy shorts are an improvement but then, how could they not be? John Claeys’ Mourningwood Cemetery is atmospheric minimalism, shot in strikingly expressionistic black and white. Aaron Marshall’s The Guardian conveys a disturbingly
haunting and almost wistful, organic quality. Sammy Terry’s newest trip to the
surreal netherworld takes us back to the dawn of cinema when he surprisingly,
and rather strangely, hosted Edison’s silent screamer Frankenstein (1910)
(directed by J. Searle Dawley). This is a notable, gutsy step in a vastly
improved direction. Even the Sammy of yesteryear never traveled into such a
fantastic realm. With the last couple of installments, The New Nightmare
Theater took us back to the striking milieu of the original Sammy Terry, circa
1975, and showed the potential to improve on it. Of course, this direction may
be a short-lived fluke, and it has yet to erase those initial blunders. But, if
the New Nightmare Theater practices discrimination in the films it shows, this
could startle and surprise an audience enough to make them return. They might
even recruit friends beyond the local scene, which the original Sammy was never
able to do. If Sammy Terry utilizes astute judgment in film selection, and in
the direction for the character as well, then the possibilities are expansive
enough to overcome a damaging first impression. In the dead of night, I
sincerely hope he does.

TOD BROWNING’S MIRACLES FOR SALE (1939)

Tod Browning’s final film, Miracles For Sale (1939) has been made available on home video for the first time in 2011. It is part of the Warner Archive Collection and rather oddly hidden in a Robert Young double feature package. Nothing against Young, but one is tempted to ask the Warner Marketing team an incredulous “what were you thinking?” The list of Robert Young devotees would seem to spark quite little interest today. Comparatively, the marketing team would probably generate far more interest in collections of directors such as a Tod Browning or James Whale, both of whom  still have considerable followings among classic film fans,  genre fans, film students, and film historians.

Although Browning was on his brand of “best behavior” following the debacle of Freaks (1932) and was forced into caution within the Will Hays Code Universe, he stubbornly only made compromises which still allowed him to be Tod Browning, retaining thematic continuity up to this, his last work. Miracles For Sale begins with a typical Browning scenario: mutilation. A young woman has been captured and awaits military execution for political crimes. She is placed in a large box and shot in half. This stark opening is followed by another Browning theme: the illusion. This below the waist mutilation is merely a staged “Miracle for Sale.” According to the magician and seller of magic tricks,  Mike Morgan (Robert Young), “The hand is faster than the eye” (with a slight of hand now, watch that sugar bowl). The structure of Miracles For Sale takes Morgan’s credo to heart. It is kinetically paced like a screwball comedy, reminding us that Browning’s earliest ventures into film were slapstick.

In this very loose adaptation of Clayton Rawson’s hit novel, “Death from a Top Hat” Browning revisits obsessive, familiar themes of fake spiritualism, magic acts, the who done it, locked door murder mystery and transformation through disguises (from the Houdini-like character of Dave Duvallo; Henry Hull-Werewolf of London-1935). Morgan has a reputation for assisting the police department in helping to expose phony mediums, occultists and immoral tricksters who prey on gullible widows and the like.  Morgan’s rep gets put to the test when he  assists, protects, and falls for Judy Barclay (frequent co-star Florence Rice) who is being pursued by a mysterious assailant. Judy also has a medium for a sister in Madame Rapport (Gloria Holden-Dracula’s Daughter-1936) who is a suspect and will come in handy.  The budding romance between the personable Young and Rice alternates between frantic and charming, with many smoked cigarettes shared between them during the ensuing danger of the mystery at hand.  The bridled, sexual chemistry and tension between the two, although subtle, even arouses Morgan’s father (Frank Craven).

Tauro the Magician (Harold Minjir) is murdered. However, according to the coroner, Tauro was murdered several hours before he was seen alive and well by Morgan. Browning stages a con within a con,which involves the elaborate bullet between the teeth of a pretty girl routine. The illusion is played on the audience within the film and the audience of the film itself. Trap doors, hidden panels and a staged seance reveal ominous secrets. Stalking killers peer through windows and haunted typewriters issue dreaded warnings. Morgan, the debunker of tricksters, utilizes his own highly elaborate trick to smoke out the obvious murderer(recalling Mark of the Vampire-1935). However, Browning, even when clearly taking a Tiny Time-like “tiptoe through the tulips” safe route, incurred the impassioned anger of the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians for having exposed the secrets of multiple magic acts.

Of course, Browning had visited the con within the backstage con time and again, but the entire structure of Miracles for Sale is an illusion itself, making it a sublime curtain call for the director. It is the most studio bound of Browning’s films and while it is, rightly, not ranked as highly as his other “classics”, Miracles for Sale is an underrated charmer with a good cast inviting us into to Browning’s theatrical universe one last time. Frank Craven supplies MGM styled comedy relief, but Browning is clearly more interested in the eccentric character actors, which include Hull, Holden, and Minjir.

Tod Browning was unceremoniously (and inevitably) fired after this film, even though Miracles for Sale did fairly well at the box office and with critics. Browning’s  remaining twenty five years were spent as a widower recluse in alcoholic seclusion. Ironically, like his main star Lon Chaney, Browning developed throat cancer, which rendered him mute. Tod Browning’s final days were spent alone and in silence. Caught in that past, other world of his beloved silent cinema, Browning left an indelible mark for which societal outcasts could forever identify with.

TOD BROWNINGS THE MYSTIC 1925

Tod Browning‘s frequent collaborator Waldemar Young wrote the screenplay for The
Mystic from Browning’s story, and it is clearly part their family of work
together which includes The Unholy Three (1925), The Blackbird1926), The
Show 1927), The Unknown (1927), London After Midnight 1927), West
of Zanzibar (1928), and Where East is East  (1929). The early knife-throwing act
seen here could be a blueprint for the same act in The Unknown. The
Mystic (1925) opens in a Hungarian gypsy carnival. The main attraction of
the carnival is “The Mystic,” Zara (Aileen Pringle). Zara is part of a trio,
which includes Poppa Zazarack (Mitchell Lewis) and Zara’s lover Anton (Robert
Ober). Of course, Zara’s clairvoyant act is all illusion and Browning, as
usual, lets his audience in on the trickery almost from the outset.

Conman Michale Nash (Conway Tearle) approaches the trio with a proposal to
take their act to America, where they can bilk naive, rich Manhattanites out of
their fortunes. The New Yorkers make Zara’s seances a hit, although not all of
the natives are so gullible, and the police are secretly investigating the
scam. To complicate matters, Nash puts the moves on Zara, and Anton is pushed
aside. Love does funny things, and soon Nash develops a conscience. He becomes
reluctant to swindle a young heiress. The ever-jealous Zara believes Nash must
want her for himself; but Nash simply wants to reform and make a better, honest
life for Zara. Their relationship is reminiscent of the one between Priscilla
Dean and Wheeler Oakman in Browning’s Outside The Law 1920), as are
the familiar Browning themes of reformation and unpunished crimes.

Pringle shows considerable screen charisma; or, at least, Browning draws it
out of her here. Her performance compares to other great female roles in
Browning’s ouevre: Joan Crawford in The Unknown and Lupe Velez in Where
East is East. In many scenes, such as the knife-throwing scene, Pringle
looks remarkably like Crawford; in close-ups, Pringle exudes the same soft
sensuality and subtle anguish. In other scenes, Pringle shares the bubbly
quality that we see later in Velez’s performance. At other times Pringle calls
to mind the mysterious exoticism of Edna Tichenor Unfortunately, Pringle and
Browning never got to work together again. The actress was reportedly difficult
to work with; most of her co-stars considered he an intellectual snob. Indeed,
she kept company with many of the artisans and intellectuals of her day. George
Gershwin and H.L. Mencken were among her notable lovers and she was married,
briefly, to author James M. Cain. Pringle’s acting career never really took
off, and she didn’t seem to care. She remained active in films (mostly small
parts, which included uncredited roles) up until the mid 1940s and died in 1989
at the age of 94.

Because of the lack of usual Browning stars, The Mystic is an
interesting, lesser-known film in the director’s canon. Not only is it
thematically related to his other films, but it also shows the idiosyncratic
continuity of his taste in actresses and his ability to mold actors, whoever
they were.

Note: the luxurious costumes for The Mystic were
the work of legendary French designer Erté. Erté, who was a
big fan of George Melies, said it was a thrilling experience to collaborate
with such a distinguished surrealist as Tod Browning.