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My movie year (so far)

This is my second installment of "What I watched in 2006." This time, a good one, a very good one, and two duds.

Crippled Masters (1981 - Hong Kong). Sorry, that's really what it's called. The story of two mutilated warriors joining forces-- one with arms cut off, the other with destroyed legs-- wasn't new to Hong Kong cinema, since the Shaw Brothers had released Crippled Avengers just a few years earlier. What was new in this version was both characters were played by actors who were, shall we say, born to play the roles. If you think that sounds awful, you're right, and so is the movie. The two guys' physical stunts were so impressive that I felt like a heartless bastard bailing out after 45 minutes, but the realization that I was almost 52 and had no more time left to waste on crap like this suddenly got the better of me.

Brats (1930), starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. An early sound two-reeler with L&H doing a two-man show, playing both themselves and their children. Great premise and inventive oversize sets for the kids' scenes, but it's really only B-plus Stan & Ollie-- see, even the greats can get overwhelmed when the special effects get out of hand. Don't get me wrong, though, grade B for these guys would be an A-plus for a comedy today. I love Ollie's very un-PC reaction to one of the kids' outbursts: "If you brats don't be quiet, I'll wring your necks!"

Henry and Dizzy (1942). I saw and liked all the Henry Aldrich movies when I was a kid-- they used to show them between the interminable Dialing for Dollars segments on my local NBC channel. (Does anybody remember those? A guy sitting behind a giant telephone, talking to someone not on mic, so it was basically watching a one-sided phone conversation. And all for a big five bucks!) As entertaining as I still found this story of dorky Henry and his buddy trying to get out of another jam, I couldn't help thinking that these teenagers were from another galaxy compared to the ones I know today. So are the parents-- at one point, Father asks Mother if it would cheer Henry up if "I fooled around with him a little."

Murder by Television (1935), starring Bela Lugosi and Hattie McDaniel. This isn't the worst Lugosi movie of them all, but it's probably in the top 10. Bela is given some dialogue so ridiculous I even wonder if he knew the words he was saying, or if he was just speaking phonetically.

Posted by Steve Monaco at January 18, 2006 1:45 AM

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