Category Archives: Movies

January 24, 2026 · 5:32 am

A double feature: Howard Hawks, John Wayne and Leigh Brackett!

Not only that, the two movies I watched last weekend both ran 2.5 hours. Only one of them was worth the running time, though.

A number of people consider RIO BRAVO (1959) Howard Hawks’ last great film (cowritten by Brackett and Jules Furthman). I loved when I first caught it years ago; it doesn’t hold up as well on rewatching as Red River did but that may have been my mood that afternoon. Things have been so hectic this month, it’s harder to relax and go with the movie flow.

The opening is certainly striking, more so for being silent. Dude (Dean Martin), a deputy and gunman undone by drink (he crawled into the bottle after his wife ran off) stares into a saloon. Slimy bad man Burdette (Claude Akins) offers him a silver dollar to buy some booze, then drops it into the saloon spittoon. Dude (back then the name referred to a fancy dresser, which presumably Martin was before he became a lush) is almost ready to stick his hand in when Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) shows up and stops him. That prompts one of the barflies to stand up to Burdette, who guns him down. Chance and Dude bust Burdette, who’s unfazed — his wealthy brother won’t let him suffer any consequences and won’t care who gets hurt. And it’s six days until a US Marshal arrives to take custody of the killer …

This is something of an anti-High Noon. Hawks thought the premise of that film — Gary Cooper’s sheriff trying to form a posse against a gang of killers — was ridiculous; a group of farmers and storekeepers don’t stand a chance against a band of professionals. Hawks liked his protagonists competent and professional and Cooper didn’t measure up. Here, John T. dismisses the idea out of hand; he’ll do his best to survive with Dude and cantakerous deputy Stumpy (Walter Brennan), come what may. Colorado (Ricky Nelson) has the skills to help but he sticks his neck out for nobody; John T. approves (“Smart kid.”). Then there’s Feathers (Angie Dickinson), a chattering gambler who shows up on the stage and insists on sticking around for Chance, even if the odds are against him living long enough for anything to happen.

There are lots of elements echoing earlier Hawks movies here. Tough, competent men under pressure. A bantering relationship between an awkward male lead and a more assertive woman. People constantly having to prove themselves (John T. likes testing everyone). I think one reason it threw me off is that the character arcs — Dude struggling to stay off the booze, Feathers/John T. — are more important than the supposed threat of the Burdettes. That said, it’s still enjoyable, though Ricky Nelson and Dickinson ain’t much as actors. And may I say that is one terrific poster. “We’re all fools. We ought to get along very well together.”

In Films of Howard Hawks, Donald C. Willis says HATARI! (1962) is Hawks’ worst film, the one Willis would bring up if he wanted to prove Hawks was largely talentless. Can’t say I disagree.

Sean Mercer (Wayne again) leads a team of men working in Africa to capture animals for American zoos, variously including Pockets (Red Buttons), the Indian (Bruce Cabot) and Brandy (Michelle Girardon), the daughter of their former boss. Trouble erupts because a)Brandy, whom they’ve known since childhood, is very obviously a woman now, and b)the “Dallas” the zoo hired to photograph the team’s work turns out to be another very obvious woman (Elsa Martinelli) who finds Sean attractive but frustrating; burned by his ex, he refuses to make a move so she has to do the work (“Do you prefer your kisses fast or slow?”).

As Willis says, these feel less like Howard Hawks characters and more like character who’ve watched lots of Hawks films and are trying to imitate them. We have the tough band of men, a flirtation that works much less well than in Rio Bravo, a constant risk of death, rivalry over a woman, a climax with baby elephants that reminds me of Bringing Up Baby …and it all falls flat. I might not be a huge fan of Angie Dickinson’s actions but I bought Feathers falling for Sheriff Chance; here I can’t swallow Dallas/Sean, nor Pockets/Brandy. Pockets is supposed to be a likable comic-relief sidekick but for whatever reason Buttons can’t pull off the role. The one good thing in the film is the gorgeous wildlife photography. It’s not enough. Oh, and while it’s only a minor weakness, it’s annoying Brackett and Hawks got their blood types wrong (someone with AB negative blood is rare, but B, O and A negative blood can all be given to such a recipient). “Rhinos, elephants, buffalo — and a greenhorn.”

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January 23, 2026 · 5:15 am

There’s hype and then there’s hype with style

“Add a movie to the wonders of the world!” is, I think, in category B

I have not seen the movie but the sentiment from those who have is that the movie does not, in fact, rise to a wonder of the world. In case you were wondering.

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January 20, 2026 · 5:19 am

Is Dr. Jekyll man or monster? Or … is he both?

A few last movies I rewatched for Watching Jekyll and Hyde.

Rewatching DR. JEKYLL’S DUNGEON OF DEATH (1979) confirmed that it’s the kind of sleazy low-budget crap that would have gone straight to video a few years later. Along with testing his ancestor’s formula for unleashed aggression on kidnapped guinea pigs (in a rare moment of sanity in this subgenre, Jekyll points out that self-testing is a stupid risk to take), Jekyll is raping the captive woman who once rejected him, leching on the sister he lobotomized (and gaslighting her that she’s a Hideous Scarface) and plotting revenge on a professor for reasons we never learn. Despite assuring us this takes place on a Vast Estate, the one or two shots we see outside are a suburban street; the eponymous dungeon is Jekyll’s basement. “We both know that genius is born of madness.”

THE TWO FACES OF DR. JEKYLL (1960) improves slightly on rewatching – Dawn Addams is better than I gave her credit for — but ultimately still falls flat. Having Hyde (Paul Massie) attempt to win back Jekyll’s faithless wife (Addams) from shameless cad Christopher Lee is a great set up but I don’t know the characters well enough to care (did Mrs. Jekyll ever love Henry? Did Henry ever love her before he became an obsessive mad scientist?). I do like the trope reversal at the end, with Hyde struggling to purge himself of Jekyll only to lose when Jekyll resurfaces. That’s all to recommend this other than Christopher Lee’s performance as a complete weasel. “We English never know what we feel.”


For all Amicus producer/screenwriter Milton Subotsky wanted I, MONSTER (1972) to be The Most Faithful Adaptation, the most interesting idea is to make Christopher Lee’s Dr. Marlowe a practicing psychiatrist (as opposed to the standard approach of providing charity medical care or focusing on research) whose frustration with conventional psychotherapy leads to drug experiments to cut through human repression …

I do wonder if Subotsky wasn’t influenced by Two Faces as Dr. Marlowe’s belief (Subotsky renamed the leads in the belief audiences wouldn’t come to a Jekyll and Hyde film) that Evil Is Ugly could easily be refuting Two Faces screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz’s belief Evil Should Be Sexy (alternatively it could be a way to rationalize why the drug changes Marlowe physically). After watching this I decided it was impossible to pull off a faithful adaptation until Jean Renoir proved me wrong. With Richard Hurndall as Lanyon and Michael des Barres as a street punk who picks the wrong toff to rough up. “What is more to the purpose — I’ve had a lesson.”

I’m glad I rewatched JEKYLL (2007) as I don’t think I appreciated on first viewing how much it riffs on the March/Tracy template, sometimes in ways that are not obvious (like Tracy and March, Matt Keeslar’s Jekyll reveals his split identity to the Bad Girl before killing her, though in this case it’s unintentional). One reason this doesn’t work for me is that Keeslar isn’t a convincing Hyde, and I can’t buy that a former, hard-partying wild man (that comes from Stevenson, of course) would be that unnerved to find the stripper Bad Girl turns him on.

That said, this is one of the more contemporary adaptations, incorporating computer games, Utterson as a female BFF for Jekyll and no slut-shaming of the stripper. It has its merits, just not enough of them. “This is the moment — the single incident that defines the rest of your life.”

I rewatched the Tracy version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1941) after reading a letter from Joe Breen (the top enforcer for the Production Code) warning that when Tracy whips Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner in one hallucination sequence, the whip mustn’t be seen striking the women. That’s the kind of hairsplitting the Production Code specialized in, but it works: I was genuinely surprised to realize the whip never does land — all we see is Tracy’s Jekyll cracking a whip while he rides in a hansom cab pulled by the two women.

I was also intrigued by Breen’s directive a second hallucination sequence cut out all scenes with “the girl and the swan” — they did and I’ve had no luck researching what it was.

The 1980 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE is definitely in my list of top adaptations. David Hemmings is excellent as a middle-aged Jekyll, a clergyman’s son wracked by guilt over his addiction to banging sex workers and hopeful his miracle drug will cleave off his sinful side and let him become pure. Instead it turns him into a younger, devil-may-care Hemmings by the simple expedient of ditching the middle-aged false whiskers and poundage; not only does he have more fun but Jekyll’s fiancee finds him way more charming as Hyde. Discounting gender flip adaptations (Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde), this is the only Hyde who goes for men as well as women. Even there we only see one male sex worker providing services (I’m guessing Hyde stiffs him on his pay because of Jekyll’s guilt about M/M sex). With James Bond’s Q, Desmond Llewelyn, as the ever-doomed Sir Danvers Carew. “I never thought the pleasures of the flesh were the work of the devil.”

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January 17, 2026 · 5:15 am

Wake up dead man — you’ve been targeted for termination!

WAKE UP, DEAD MAN (2025) is the third of Daniel Craig’s outings as ace detective Benoit Blanc, following Knives Out and The Glass Onion. Josh O’Connor plays Father Jud, a boxer who turned into a priest as a path to redemption after viciously beating his opponent in the ring to death. He’s assigned to the small-town parish of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher who looks down on Jud’s belief the church should offer grace and lift people up, not punch down at them. Wicks’ reverential flock included a failing doctor (Jeremy Renner), a frustrated lawyer (Kerry Washington), a devout believer (Glenn Close) and others. When Wicks walks into an alcove in full view of the flock and comes out stabbed to death, who could have done it? And how?

Craig is delightful as he relishes the prospect of a genuine locked-room impossible crime but there’s less of him in the movie and it suffers thereby. Beyond that, the movie felt off to me in a way I couldn’t pin down until I read Camestros Felapton’s review — the problem is that it’s a Catholic Church but the trappings, the sermons are very much right-wing Protestant and it doesn’t quite work (Kirsten Kobes du Mez, however, argues it works in many ways). Still, it’s a fun one to watch. “They all look like John Goodman in THE BIG LEBOWSKI.”

TYG has never seen THE TERMINATOR (1984) so we watched my DVD for a recent date night. Having imagined it as an over the top spectacle like the Avatar films or True Lies she was pleasantly surprised by the tense, low-budget story of cyborg Arnold Schwarzenegger traveling back in time to alter history by killing Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and Michael Biehn jumping back to stop him. The story is set up so we don’t know who’s who or which side they’re on or what it’s all about at first; for all the jokes about Schwarzenegger at the time (who better to play an emotionless inhuman robot?), he’s effectively menacing here.

The film’s opening acknowledgement to the work of Harlan Ellison reflects his view that it ripped off his Outer Limits episodes “Soldier” (visually the openings do have a lot in common) and “Demon With a Glass Hand” (I’m not convinced) though I think the film is enough of its own thing that it stands on its own. The start of a long-running franchise and a fine movie in its own right. “He won’t stop until he finds you. That’s what he does — that’s all he does.”

TYG bought me a collection of three early Fritz Lang silents on DVD for Christmas, the first of which is HARAKIRI (1919), a film that show Germans are as susceptible to Orientalism as Americans. This adaptation of Madame Butterfly is competently made but not terribly interesting, and the jerk male lead deserve to be soundly slapped. “You lost your belief in Buddha — beware his wrath!”

It’s a big week for TYG related films — although she’s a fan of HIGH FIDELITY (2000) she’s never seen it on the big screen so that was last weekend’s date movie (it played at the Carolina Theatre here). John Cusack plays Rob, a record-store owner and something of a jerk who’s just gone through Number Five of his all-time worst breakups, with girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjelje). This sends him into his flashback booth to contemplate lost loves including Lili Taylor and Catherine Zeta-Jones — why didn’t it work out? Is there a pattern here? Meanwhile he has to ride herd on his peculiar staff, most notably Jack Black in his breakout role as an obnoxious music nerd.

My only reservation when I watched this originally was wondering why Laura should be The One when she didn’t stand out compared to his past girlfriends. Now I’m inclined to see it as Rob having grown up enough to handle being in love, which he definitely wasn’t earlier. Based on Nick Hornsby’s novel, the cast includes Joan Cusack as Rob’s sister, Sara Gilbert as a music nerd and Tim Robbins as a possible romantic rival. “I’ve been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I’ve come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.”

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January 10, 2026 · 5:29 am

Slammed by Hyde (and Jekyll) near the end

As I wrote a couple of weeks back, I found a spate of Jekyll and Hyde-related films right as I was wrapping up. Which is inconvenient but better than finding them after I finish.

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (2003) was unavailable to stream last time I checked but by the vagaries of such things, it suddenly turned up on Prime. John Hannah stars in an unremarkable film following the template of the Spencer Tracy adaptation : Jekyll plans to test his experimental drug on a madman who dies, so why not test it on himself? Oops.

The more adaptations I watch, the more I’m impressed that the Fredric March version takes a half-hour before the first transformation and yet it isn’t boring; this film, like so many, is tedious. The most interesting aspect is that Sir Danvers Carew (David Warner) has Jekyll take a new maid into his household who turns out to be Carew’s illegimate daughter, the half-sister to Jekyll’s fiancee. That feels like it should lead to something … but it doesn’t. “The mind controls the body but who controls the mind?”

The Argentinian EL EXTRANO CASE DEL HOMBRE Y LA BESTIA (1951) is another one that suddenly turned up online, though unfortunately without any subtitles. This starts off like Stevenson (the story of the trampling, the will, the encounter by the laboratory door) then goes it’s own way with Jekyll’s wife’s pregnancy giving Jekyll the strength to resist the temptation to become Hyde. Only four years later, playing with his kid, the doctor notices his hands are turning hairy … From what I’ve read online this has a lot of A-list talent from Argentine cinema but I can’t say it worked for me. Though obviously I’m missing a lot.

CARMILLA HYDE (2010) is an Aussie film in which a straitlaced young woman’s friends decide to loosen her up by getting her drunk, drugged and raped (the term “friends” is doing a lot of work here …). To help deal with it her therapist gives her a split personality to handle the emotions until she can process them; before long, however, “Carmilla Hyde” is taking over and also taking revenge on her so called friends. And it turns out the therapist has some secrets of his own … Appendix material only. “My brother blames me — the evil child that destroyed the family.”

IGOR (2008) is also appendix material but I wish I’d had more time to pay attention to it. The story of a small kingdom of mad scientists has the eponymous assistant hoping his invention will elevate him above a mere lab worker, but a scheming rival plans to steal his secrets with the help of shapeshifter Jacqueline Hyde. “Everyone has an evil bone in their body but it’s up to us to decide whether to use it.”

Discovering the 1970s THE GHOST BUSTERS was available online, I watched their episode dealing with the ghosts of Jekyll and Hyde. This series dealt with three inept ghost hunters (Larry Storch, Forrest Tucker and Bob Burns in a gorilla suit) who work through endless shticks and comedy routines that bury the nominal plot (Jekyll’s scheme to free himself from having to haunt houses alongside Hyde). None of it was funny. This has nothing to do with the later films though Filmation revived it as a cartoon when the first Ghostbusters film hit big; a fight over the name is why the film spinoff cartoon was labeled The Real Ghostbusters.

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January 3, 2026 · 5:15 am

Looking back, because now is too tired

I was planning to write a movie post for today after I emailed the book off. But Friday was supposed to be a no-work day and I didn’t feel like it. So here’s a movie-analysis post from 2009, when I was working on Screen Enemies of the American Way (my working title was The Enemy Within).

For those who don’t remember, that was my book about political paranoia in American films, the belief Communists/Nazis/Japanese/ETs/etc. were infiltrating us to destroy our way of life from within. My chapter on the Red Menace films of the 1950s made me notice how they approached civil rights:

“Watching anti-Communist films for The Enemy Within, I’m struck by how many of the fifties films make an issue out of race.

It’s not surprising. The Communist Party made civil rights a platform plank at a time neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to risk it. And when the civil-rights movement really got going, a standard charge against it was that it was a Communist plot, with Red “outside agitators” stirring up the Negroes who were otherwise perfectly happy and knew their place (this theme still has some pull on the right, it seems: One columnist wrote last year that only Communists crossed the color line back in the pre-Civil Rights days, so that proves Barack Obama’s parents were Reds—and therefore, of course, he grew up indoctrinated into Communist doctrine) The movies reinforce the second point while making it clear the Party’s support for civil rights is a myth:

•In I Was a Communist For the FBI, a Red speaker addresses Negroes with “a hellbrew of hate cooked up from a recipe written in the Kremlin.” He tells the hero afterwards that he’s hoping to spark black-on-white assaults or even killings, after which the Party will defend the accused and use the incident to make America look bad. The same man also uses the n-word to refer to his black audience after they’ve gone.

•In Red Menace, a priest preaches the glories of the melting pot—it doesn’t matter if you’re Irish, Jewish, black, once you become American you’re welcome—in contrast to which the Communist party emphasizes how minorities are discriminated against (which is equated to promoting separatism and anti-Americanism). When an Italian-American Party member questions official doctrine, a Party leader dismisses him as a “dago.” Later in the movie, a black writer for a Communist newspaper is told by his father that where America has freed its slaves, the Communist keep thousands in slavery behind the Iron Curtain.

•In one episode of I Led Three Lives (American citizen, Communist agent and FBI counter-agent, in case you were wondering), the Party buys up a newsreel company that will present distorted views of America, for example falsely showing that people living in the slum districts are afflicted by poverty and racial discrimination.

•In Trial, Glenn Ford becomes second chair to showboating Communist attorney Arthur Kennedy on a racially charged murder case. While Ford is clearly shown to be sympathetic to the defendant (a Hispanic kid involved with a white girl), the only organized support for the defendant comes from the Communist Party—and we learn that the donations Kennedy is taking for the legal costs are going right into the Party coffers. Not only that, he plans to lose the case, making the kid a martyr to American racism.

This sort of thing shows why it’s important to watch movies wherever possible, not just read synopses in movie books. There’s a lot of stuff. I probably wouldn’t pick up if I did it that way.”

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December 27, 2025 · 5:17 am

A tiny bit of Christmas viewing

I rewatched OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY (2016) because I correctly remembered it as fluffy fun — I felt like some of that — and because I wanted a film I could use as a talking lamp while I worked. This has Jason Bateman learning CEO Jennifer Anniston is about to shut down his branch of their company; a contract with businessman Courtney B. Vance could turn that around but he thinks Bateman’s crew are nothing but corporate drones.

The solution? Lie! They’re wild, crazy and about to stage a booze-soaked, misbehavior-inspiring Christmas party straight out of the 1980s (the filmmakers stop short of suggesting anyone’s using any drugs stronger than alcohol or pot). With my continuing all hands on deck rush to finish up the book, this was what I needed; Olivia Munn plays Bateman’s possible love interest, Kate McKinnon is a by-the-book HR staffer. “This is a multi-denominational holiday sweater — it has Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Buddhist day of enlightenment and Boxing Day on it.”


A CHRISTMAS STORY (1984) once again provided our Day Of entertainment, as Ralphie and his friends navigate between school bullies, potty-mouthed father Darren McGavin, soap poisoning, messages from Little Orphan Annie and of course the elusive dream of owning a Red Ryder BB gun. Looking it up online I discover it’s intentionally anachronistic (probably set in 1939/1940 but the soundtrack goes up to the 1950s). “Icicles have been known to kill people!”

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December 20, 2025 · 5:15 am

I thought I was done but they keep pulling me back in!

While I’m rewatching a number of movies for Jekyll and Hyde, I thought I was done watching anything new. I’d seen it all except for a couple of films that simply weren’t available.

Oops. This week my research reading turned up one for the appendix and two films miraculously turned up on Amazon or YouTube. I can’t think of any way it could happen again, though. Due to the rush to get the book done, only one movie gets a review this week.

The appendix-bait is PARIS — WHEN IT SIZZLES (1964) [the on-screen titles show a dash though the poster below does not] because there’s an uncredited Mel Ferrer playing Jekyll and Hyde (i.e., he’s dressed in a top hat and cape, drinks a foaming potion, transforms) in a party scene. Otherwise I used this as a talking lamp while I worked on other stuff.

A Hollywood studio head (Noel Coward) realizes they have 48 hours before shooting starts for The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower and they haven’t received one page from scriptwriter Richard Benson (William Holden) or even a hint what it’s about (even if Benson were a genius this is absolutely batshit). As Benson’s living in Paris, the studio sends over Gabrielle Simpson (Audrey Hepburn) to become his minder: cling to him like a leech but get the damn script written!

Richard, it turns out, hasn’t written one damn thing so now he and Gabrielle have to conceive and write the script in two days. In between supposedly witty banter, they toss off ideas — war movies! Horror movie! Love story! — before settling on a caper film. As they imagine it out, and also imagine themselves as the two leads, the characters constantly shift — is the pretty girl the master safecracker Rick meets reallly an innocent tourist? What if she’s a police spy? Or a prostitute with a heart of gold? And what does it mean that the girl is going to steal the Eiffel Tower?

This is one of those movies with the ingredients to make a fun, quirky film but it just doesn’t work. Hepburn is adorable, as always, but she and Holden don’t have the spark they did in Sabrina, the dialog is annoyingly arch and the story feels less quirky than “let’s throw some more stuff at the wall! Something’s got to stick!” Part of the problem was that Holden had fallen for Hepburn on Sabrina and having her within arm’s reach but uninterested turned his alcoholism, already bad, up to 11. The director had to work around Holden’s problems which led to adding Tony Curtis in a supporting role and Marlene Dietrich in a cameo (details here). It didn’t help; the movie tanked as it deserved to. Still, Hepburn looks adorable and irresistible, as always. “It is a well-known fact that I am not only a brilliant safecracker, I am a liar and a thief.”

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December 13, 2025 · 5:09 am

Christmas in Zootopia: movies viewed

As usual I kicked off my Christmas viewing with WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954) wherein Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye dress up in drag, Rosemary Clooney wonders why love didn’t do right by her (one of my favorite songs from his musical), Dean Jaeger marvels how soft his soldiers have gotten in a decade of civilian life and the stars agree that everyone loves a minstrel show (it’s a minor miracle they didn’t do it in blackface).

While I often use this as a “talking lamp” I broke off and watched close for the many good bits like Danny Kaye and Vera Allen doing a romantic dance together early on. The parts are more impressive than the sum but they’re very good parts. “We’ll tell our kids we answered duty’s call/With the grandest son of a soldier of them all.”

As rewatching Jekyll and Hyde stuff is taking up most of my viewing time, it’s shame I wasted any of it on MEET ME NEXT CHRISTMAS (2024). Christina Milian has a Meet Cute one Christmas but they’re both attached — but if they’re free next Christmas, they’ll meet at a Pentatonix concert. Sure enough Milian throws out her cheating boyfriend but it’s so late in the season, she can’t find concert tickets! Oh noes! This was bland stuff, and making it a heavy handed product placement for Pentatonix doesn’t help. “When I was a teenager I bought Nsync tickets from a guy in an abandoned Quiznos.”

As TYG and I both loved Zootopia, we caught ZOOTOPIA 2 (2025) which proved a much better use of our time. In the first movie, bunny meter-maid Judy Hops (Ginnifer Goodwin) and fox grifter Jack Wild (Jason Bateman) cracked a major case threatening the eponymous city of anthropomorphic animals. Too bad for Judy’s ambitions nobody thinks one lucky break makes them into superstar cops — but a mysterious snake’s attack on the respected Lynxley family (snakes have been kept out since a cold blooded murder by one viper a century ago) convinces Judy they have a case that will prove they’re tops. Except of course, the case proves more than it first appears, but you probably guessed that.

This has fewer surprises than the first film but it’s great fun, with some neat visual touches and a subtext about discrimination and gentrification that doesn’t smother the film. Extra points for keeping Judy and Jack as best friends rather than having them fall into each other’s arms (though I won’t be surprised if the inevitable Zootopia 3 goes there). With Danny Trejo as an enigmatic lizard, Patrick Warburton as the windbag horse mayor, Shakira as a pop singer, Jean Reno as both members of another cop duo and David Straitharn as a villainous mastermind. “She’s a rabbit, isn’t she? Why not pull her out of your hat?”

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December 6, 2025 · 5:29 am

Hulks, a tramp and eternal youth: TV and movies

As the Bill Bixby Hulk TV show wound down, NBC launched THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1982) as a Saturday morning cartoon. It strongly resembles the Hulk’s Silver Age run in Tales to Astonish: in between the Hulk clobbering various threats (Doctor Octopus, Spymaster) Bruce Banner struggles to keep his identity secret with Rick Jones’ help, while fellow scientist and girlfriend Betty Ross wonders where Bruce keeps disappearing to.

It’s adequate but uninspired compared to the X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons of the 1990s. It’s distinctive in making Betty a scientist years before the MCU (in comics she was Bruce’s Girlfriend, General Ross’s daughter, nothing more) and showing her as capable in other ways: in the final episode, when she’s convinced the Hulk has killed Bruce, she goes after him like an avenging fury.

It’s also interesting that “Origin of the Hulk” has all the visuals of the gamma bomb test from the comics but they never spell out that the gamma-ray device Bruce is testing was a weapon. Nuclear testing no longer being cool, it’s the closest anyone’s come to using the comics origin on either the big or the small screen. And finally this gives us She-Hulk’s first screen appearance, though not a memorable one. “Looks like you captured a stuffed gorilla!”

The first season of THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1996) has a stronger voice cast (Neal McDonough as Bruce, Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk, Genie Francis as Betty, Cree Summer as Jennifer “She-Hulk” Walters and Matt Frewer as the Leader) and draws more on the Bronze Age when Hulk (created this time by a gamma-powered engine exploding) was restlessly wandering all over the country, pursued by General Ross’s Hulkbusters. Betty is once again a scientist (I’m surprised they never retconned this take into the MU) and we have a huge array of guest stars including Thor, Iron Man and Ghost Rider. A much more entertaining show and She-Hulk’s personality shows how much she improved since her debut: where Bruce is unleashing his buried rage, she unleashes Jennifer’s buried swagger and sense of fun. “Totally irrelevant, Gargoyle — you know I don’t do gratitude.”

BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING (1932) is a Jean Renoir film in which a bourgeousie bookstore owner saves a tramp from going down, takes him into his home, then both of them and the businessman’s family have to adjust. It’s a quirky, cynical little comedy of manners, much better than the more pretentious American remake Down and Out in Beverly Hills. However it does not shed as much light as I thought on Renoir’s later The Testament of Dr. Cordelier. “He spat in Balzac! He respects nothing!”

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1945) is a vast improvement over Oscar Wilde’s tedious book, though it wasn’t quite what I was in the mood for relaxing after Thanksgiving dinner. George Sanders as Wotton tosses off Wilde’s epigrams, convincing young Dorian (Hurd Hatfield) that nothing is more important than staying young — which Dorian proceeds to do, even as his soul ages from sins such as driving singer Angela Lansbury to suicide and then moving on to innocent Donna Reed. Hatfield’s increasingly flattened affect as the film progresses becomes increasingly creepy. “The only different between a caprice and a life-long passion is that a caprice lasts longer.”

Somehow I never wrote about the Mexican film PACTO DIABOLICO (1969) in which John Carradine uses his deceased friend Dr. Jekyll’s research as the basis for a youth potion so that he’ll never have to worry about someone taking over his research and getting all the glory after he dies. Wouldn’t you know, there are A Few Side Effects, such as gouging out women’s eyes and dressing in a top hat and cape even as Carradine turns into a beastman?

At least, I think that’s what’s going on — whether from subtlety or sloppiness they never spell out clearly that Carradine’s using Jekyll’s chemical theories, so first time through I was a lot more confused. Not the worst movie I’ve watched for Jekyll and Hyde but not particularly good either. “The time has come for a supreme, inevitable meeting with destiny!”

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